Hope House (16 page)

Gloria moved closer to him on the couch. “I’ll do whatever I have to. Safe or not. Legal or not. Go ahead. I’m all ears.”

3.

Maison D’Espoir, Haiti, evening

Martine
looked at the locked metal door to the room where the eggs were kept and gritted her teeth.  The thought of that room in the hospital made her sick. It was the cause of so much pain and sadness for the girls here.  All the babies born at Maison D’Espoir began life from within that room. Dr. Tad had told her the babies waited there in big machines, in freezers shaped like barrels. She asked him if they were like those baby frogs that looked like fish, swimming around free in the barrel until he scooped them out with a net and put them into the girls.

He had laughed and corrected her. “No, Martine, not like tadpoles. Embryos are tiny, too small for someone to see without a microscope. I couldn’t just scoop them up.”

He had explained to her then, or tried to, that before the embryos were brought here—embryos meant tiny babies before they even looked human yet—that they were eggs. In a laboratory somewhere far away, several years ago, the eggs were mixed with men’s sperm in a little cup. Once mixed enough and turned into embryos, they were shipped where they waited behind that locked door, thousands of them, to be planted like seeds in the fertile young girls.

Martine did not
entirely believe what Dr. Tad said. Mixing eggs and sperm in a laboratory did not make any sense. They would scramble. Maybe you had to do it just hard enough. If you mixed them just a little too hard, but not enough to scramble, maybe that was how you got twins. Dr. Tad said it was not how you got twins but she wondered about this a lot. What to believe, what not to believe.

Whenever she walked by the door to the locked room, she still pictured the embryos as tadpoles, trying to swim their way out of the big barrels in the secret place behind the stout metal door.

Dr. Tad had said it was a wonderful thing. A miracle. The beautiful blond babies that were born from this special science made families so happy, he assured her. It used to make Martine feel proud and useful to carry a baby and give it to a family to make them happy. But now it made her sick.

Boni ha
d birthed a baby the real way and was not happy, not allowed the joy that the American families got from having a child in their arms. It was not fair. Martine leaned against the cool door. So many times over the last few years she had wanted to take an axe and smash through that door and let all the embryos out of the barrel. Let them be free.

When Martine left Maison for good, she was going to do just that. As soon as her passport came through, she was going to go in there and carry all the whole barrels out even i
f they were very heavy. She would roll them down the hill out back and to the river. And then she would break open the tops and dump them into the current—to set them free. Maybe they would turn into baby frogs since they did not even look like humans yet. And they would swim with the current. And someday they would be grown up frogs, happy to sit on rocks and eat flies.  

The thought made her smile.

But then her thoughts went back to Boni. She had to find her. It was only a few days ago she had birthed her baby. She might have fallen down somewhere in the woods, maybe even bled to death!

Yesterday she and Dr. Tad had gone to Port au Prince and put an emergency rush on Martine’s passport. She thought she would find Boni on the way walking with her baby. But they did not spot her. Martine had made Dr. Tad drive to Boni’s village but no one there, not even her family, had seen her. Dr. Tad gave Boni’s father some money so then he was happy. He smiled with brown teeth and greedy eyes and snatched the bills from Dr. Tad’s hands. He did not seem to care so much that his daughter and grandson were missing in the dense jungle. 

The entire drive back was marked by silence as Martine had watched the roads hoping to catch sight of her friend and her little baby boy.

But they didn’t see Boni at all.

By the next day Martine was worried about Boni. She had to go look for her again, through the jungle brush where cars could not drive. That would be the route Boni would travel.

If M
artine told Dr. Tad, he would not let her go. He would say she was not allowed off Maison D’Espoir lands. He would say it was not safe.

So she did not
tell him. Instead she wrote a note on a piece of Maison D’Espoir stationery and tucked it into the front door of his cottage. Then she sneaked down the hill in the back and through the opening in the gate. 

4.

Miami Hospital, Miami, same evening

“Are you sure he’s all right to go home?” Mick asked.

The petite gray-haired nurse with a big forehead fake-smiled at him, stressing her impatience. “Mr. Puglisi, he’s fine. He’s awake and responsive, he’s eating Jell-O . . . It’s time to take him home.”  She had big teeth too, Mick thought.  Big horse teeth.  He didn’t like her tone and he didn’t like her. Why was it that this bitch always seemed to be supervising this shift when Luke had surgery?

Mick didn’t want his little boy to spend the night in the hospital but it made him nervous to bring him home so quickly after surgery. What if something were to happen? What if his incisions became infected?

“Daddy,” Luke said, his eyes still a little droopy, “I go home with you. I want to see Auntie Angie.”

“All right, Luke. Let’s get you home then.” He scooped his son up and placed him in the wheelchair.

Making racecar sounds, the boy asked, “Can you push Luke fast?”

Mick looked to the nurse for an answer. “I don’t advise it,” she warned. “If you bang his toes, you’re going to cause him a lot of pain and could undo all the good the surgeon just did.”

Spoilsport.
Mick returned her fake smile and slowly pushed Luke down the hall.

“Want to go get a new animal at the gift shop?” Mick asked as they rolled into the elevator.

“Thanks, Daddy. Wuv you,”

“Love you too, buddy.” Mick smiled as he pressed the button. His son gave him such joy. He knew the families he sold his kids to received this same gift every day. Money was great, but having a kid blew that out of the water. Not that he ran the adoption operations solely to be a nice guy. Mick admitted his deepest motivation was profit and receiving the praise his own father gave him for running such a lucrative enterprise. But it was nice to know that his actions brought the added benefit of bringing joy to families.

Mick pondered this as he walked. Perhaps someday he’d get nominated for some kind of humanitarian award.

The bell chimed and Mick and Luke rolled to the gift shop. He was feeling so happy that he decided to buy his son two stuffed animals in the shop. He leaned down and kissed Luke’s little blond head. What a great little kid.

His phone buzzed as they entered the store. He frowned when he looked at the number. Tommy-freaking-Carpenter again.

“Hello?”

“
Hi Mick. You got a minute?”

“Just a minute. I’m taking care of something right now.” He pulled a big panda from the top shelf and handed it to Luke to inspect. The boy hugged it hard then handed it back. Luke was particular about his stuffed animals. They had to be very soft and have just the right smell. No hard buttons. No cold parts. That’s what he called them. Cold parts. It meant plastic face pieces or hands.

The child pointed to a donkey, so Mick handed hit to him.

“What can I do for you?”

  “
I guess you heard about the men who tried to get Gloria?”

“Of course I heard about them, you idiot. They died.” Thank God Mick hadn’t used any relatives or good friends that day. Just two local guys looking for work
his cousin recommended. Joey was damn lucky he had a dentist’s appointment.

“
I just called to say that Gloria is officially off track now. I talked to her yesterday afternoon. I brought up the age of the—”

“That’s enough. I don’t care what you told her.”

“
Well, she’s convinced this time. She’s scared and she’s ready to let it go. I made her see the light.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you?”

“
I gave her some compelling evidence. I was hoping you could call off the, well, you know, because she checked out of her hotel and I think she’s headed home.”

“I’ll give her a little break. How’s that?
If
she goes home I’ll let it go. But I’m keeping an eye on her.”

“
Fair enough. Sorry about your guys.”

“That’s all right. They were expendable—like most people I know.”

“
Ah-yeah, Mick. Understood. I’ll be in touch.”

“Okay, good man.”

Mick hung up and tried to take the donkey back from Luke. He clung onto it.  “Luke wants this one but it has cold parts.”

Mick examined the animal. The only cold parts were the plastic eyes.

“Daddy cut them off?” The boy with big bandaged feet looked up to him, his tiny teeth forming an irresistible smile.

The thought of yet another eyeless animal in the nursery gave Mick the creeps. He didn’t know how Luke could stomach all the butchery even if they were just stuffed toys. But if it made his son happy . . .

“Daddy will cut off the cold parts.” He smiled and took the animal to purchase it.

Suddenly the idea of buying two animals wasn’t
so appealing. He didn’t need more blind toys congregating around his son’s racecar toddler bed. There were far too many eyeless and handless toys as it was. 

As he paid the cashier, Mick thought of Tommy. Hell, maybe this time he had convinced Gloria. Nothing like violence and death to get someone off track.

Yup, this was all working out just fine. No need for him to have worried at all. Time to put the whole messy affair behind them.

5.

Tropical back roads of Haiti, evening

The thin branch slipped out of Martine’s hand and snapped her in the face. She felt the welt swell but kept walking. The jungle at night frightened her but she had to find Boni. The last two hours there had been nothing but darkness and silence. Occasionally she heard a small animal or a bird but
nothing else. No sounds of people talking, or cars. Martine was not even sure if she was going the right way. She thought she had been walking in the correct direction but the trees all looked the same. The road should be close. If she walked a little longer maybe she would find it and follow that way. It would be safer.

The flashlight she carried provided only a narrow tunnel of light, much less than she had expected. The moon was near full, but it was still difficult to see. The moonlight had turned every tree branch into a sinister shadow. And every shadow looked like cover for the murderous Tonton Macoute. Not the military Macoute, which carried with it its own reign of terror, but the one of legends. The evil Uncle Gunnysack, who stole the bad children at Christmastime, put them in his sack and ran off into the night with them. Martine knew Uncle Gunnysack was just a story monster created to make children behave, but right now he was all she could think about—and he had the face of Mr. Puglisi.

“Boni!” she cried out to break the unending silence. No reply. She ran a few feet, cracking twigs and cutting her legs on the prickers through her cotton flowered skirt.

A rustling sound up ahead gave her hope. Maybe it was Boni, too weak to answer. Martine ran ahead, taking another branch in the face. This one opened her skin and tangled in her dreadlocks, but it was worth
a small sacrifice to save her friend.

“Boni!”

Suddenly the woods were filled with sound. Running, snorting, and frenzied squeals. The smell of rotten fruit and rancid meat flooded the air.

Wild boars. There was no stench like a boar. Dirt and filth and death. That was the smell they carried with them everywhere.  A group of them snuffled after something in the brush. Probably a dead dog, or perhaps one of their own, wounded and weak.

She approached with her light and flashed it on their hairy grotesque faces. Worse than the Tonton Macoute. These were real and she was outnumbered.

Her only hope would be to scare them. Charge them and make them run away before they realized she was only one small girl as dark as the night. If she fai
led, they would kill and eat her. She had no chance of escaping them with their big muscled bodies and sharp teeth. Their tusks could slice her open like a machete through a papaya. And they would eat her body all up before Dr. Tad ever found her. 

She charged
, shrieking at them all at once, screaming as loud as she could, shining the light again into their beady eyes. “
Pati—Demaske’n devan’m!”
Go, Go, away! The brightness hurt their eyes and they all looked away.

The boars squealed, angry for the intrusion. The biggest one turned toward her, lifting his tusks in the air. She screamed again and flailed her arms about. “Go away, go away!” She smashed his
snout with the heavy metal flashlight. The vibration hurt her hand. “
Mwen vle’ou mouri!”
she shouted. I want you to you die!