Three Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

baby?’
    “   ‘She says so,’ Frank said. ‘She says she did. I don’t know.’
    “You should have heard his voice. I mean you could hardly hear him.
    “   ‘Wuddaya mean?’ I said. ‘She says she had a baby? Don’t you know ?’
    “   ‘She says she did,’ Frank said. ‘But I don’t know. I came home one night a couple of months ago and the door was locked. I banged on the door and asked her if she was fine. She said she was having the baby.’
    “Frank said he asked her if he should send for Dr. Bohler. Paula said no, that she didn’t need any doctor. Frank asked her if she was in any pain. Paula told him she felt marvelous. There was only one thing she wanted him to do. Frank asked her what it was. What do you think she said?
    “She said, ‘Go out in the garden and rub two roses together.’ That was all she needed.
    “   ‘My God!’ I said to Frank. ‘You didn’t do it, did you? Didn’t you send for Dr. Bohler?’
    “   ‘She didn’t want me to send for Dr. Bohler,’ Frank said. ‘She said she didn’t need him.’
    “Can you imagine?
    “   ‘ Well,’ I said. ‘You didn’t go out in the garden and rub two roses together, did you?’
    “He said, ‘Yes.’
    “   ‘What in the hell for?’ I asked him. ‘She wanted me to,’ Frank said.
    “So he did it! He went out in the garden and rubbed two roses together. Then he runs upstairs to the bedroom (the door’s still locked, mind you), and Paula tells him the baby’s born. But she wouldn’t let Frank come in to see it. It was better for her to be alone with it for awhile. Frank asked if it was a boy or a girl. Paula tells him it’s a girl. She tells him it’s a beautiful girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.
    “Frank asked her if she needed anything. Paula said she didn’t need a thing. Frank asked her to please open the door. She wouldn’t do it, though. I said to Frank, ‘By God, I’d have broken the damn thing in.’
    “Frank just shook his head. He said I didn’t know Paula. She was very sensitive, he said.
    “Well, two months went by and still Paula wouldn’t let him come in to see either her or the baby. She didn’t even let the maid in. She never even opened the door except at mealtime, and then it was only for the maid to shove a tray of food in to her.
    “She just stayed in that room with the baby. And Frank, when he came home from the office in the evening, would talk to her through the door. She’d tell him what the baby did all day, how it stuck its foot in its mouth and all that. Frank would ask her if she needed anything. Sometimes she did. The baby needed a crib or the baby needed a bottle. You know. Stuff babies need. And Frank would bring the stuff home in his car and Paula’d open the door wide enough to let him shove it through without seeing her or the baby.
    “Then one day Paula tells him the baby should have a playmate. Not exactly a playmate, but it should have some child near it occasionally. She said she seriously believed a child’s most formative period was during its infancy. She said to Frank, ‘I’ll bet you think I’m crazy.’ Frank told her no, but he was getting damn sick and tired of not being allowed to see his own child. Paula laughed and begged him to be patient awhile.
    “Well, Frank had their maid bring her niece to the house. A little kid about three years old. And the kid was allowed to see the baby.
    “Frank says to the kid when it comes out of the bedroom, ‘Did you see the baby?’
    “   ‘Yes,’ says the kid, very emphatically.
    “   ‘What’s it look like? A little girl, eh?’ Frank asked her.
    “   ‘It’s a little baby and it can’t talk.’
    “The kid said it was a little baby and it couldn’t talk and it was in a crib sleeping. You know how kids talk.
    “Well, a couple of weeks later Frank busted down the door.
    “I tell ya you won’t believe it.
    “Paula was in the crib. Frank said she had her legs pulled up so that her