Read Online Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel by Frank Freudberg - Free Book Online Page A

hear her voice. But when she suggested they meet, he said no. He didn’t want to lose his job, but mostly he didn’t want to prejudice her case in the event he did discover something actionable about her husband. Any lawyer would annihilate Natalie’s case if it were discovered she and Lock had had a personal relationship of any kind.
    As soon as he explained that to her, he said, “I need you to do me a favor.”
    “What do you want?” she said.
    “We can’t do this on our phones. We need to end this call and get disposable, prepaid cellphones, and then only use those. If the worst happens, even this call could make it hard for you to get custody,” he said.
    “Throwaway phones, like spies and criminals use, right?” she asked.
    “Exactly.”
    “I should have thought of that myself,” she said. “I’m sure Witt had my phone records checked before.”
    “When you had a boyfriend,” Lock said.
    “Awkward. He wasn’t a boyfriend, but yeah, that.”
    He smiled. “So, go get a phone and then call me at work tomorrow with the number of the new phone. I’ll pick up one for me in the morning.”
    “I can’t wait to talk to you. It’s stupid, like high school.” She laughed.
    He laughed too and said, “I know. Tomorrow night, we’ll talk as long as you want.”
     
    The next night, they talked for over three hours. They talked about when they were kids and the things they had dreamed of and the outlandish things they had believed and done. It was the same kind of talk all new lovers had, and it made Lock happy.
    “So what about your family?” she asked.
    He understood that she was going to let him answer that however he wanted—he could tell her more about his parents, or about Dominique and Hannah. He liked that she was so careful of him.
    He said, “I was in love with a woman. Her name was Dominique, and she was a ballet dancer. She had a daughter, Hannah, and we were raising her together.” He told her the rest of the story and she listened without asking questions. He told her more than he had told anyone, even the people at AA, even Abby.
    He talked about how much it disturbed him not having a family he could call his own, and how he felt love was the most potent force in the universe.
    “I know,” Natalie said. “Before you have a family, you think you want certain things. But after, whatever those things are, they suddenly seem silly, because now there’s this other thing that’s bigger than anything you ever imagined.”
    “And when you have a family,” he told her, “love is kind of just there, waiting.”
    “How do you deal with that?” she asked.
    “Holidays hurt the most. I’m always invited somewhere for Thanksgiving, but when I go, I sit there and wonder who all these people are and I wish they’d just be quiet. All it does is remind me of Dominique and Hannah.”
    “I was going to say I can’t imagine it, but I can. I do. That’s what I’m afraid of with Witt. If he wins, maybe I’ll never see my girls again.”
    “I’m not going to say don’t worry,” Lock said. “You’re worried, and that’s a good thing. We’ll be careful, and you’ll keep an eye out for anything Witt does that shows he’s not a good father.”
    “Shit, I’m getting some kind of signal on my phone. Either the battery’s dying or I’m running out of minutes,” Natalie said. “Talk tomorrow night?”
    “Tomorrow night.”

    “I love our talks,” Natalie said one night, after returning home from an Orchid Society meeting and calling him immediately. “I never get bored talking to you. The more I talk with you, the more I want. I couldn’t help thinking about you during the presentation tonight. I can barely remember what they were discussing. And the things you and I talk about are all over the place, but I remember everything.”
    “It’s the pink cloud effect,” he said. “We’re getting to know each other. We overlook the things we might not like about each