Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

Nat loved Inverness. Had he ever been happier in his life? He was so lucky. He owed them-Mrs. Smith, Miss Brown, his mom; and all the others back home.

Nat opened the door. It was dark in the outer room, the only light coming from his screen saver, but not dark enough to hide the person sleeping under a blanket on Wags’s couch, still not picked up by the movers. Was it Wags himself, released or escaped? Nat found himself smiling at the prospect. But going closer, he saw it was a woman, her face turned away, her hair longer than Wags’s and curlier. He bent over. It was Patti.

Patti. Nat froze right there, and froze was the word, with that icy tingling in his fingertips. What’s she doing here? Answers came, none convincing: some vacation he didn’t know about, a school trip, an internship in an eastern city. To find out, all he had to do was wake her. He didn’t want to. He wanted to let her sleep, there under Wags’s afternoon nap blanket. To simply let her sleep, because nothing had gone wrong yet; to let her sleep before he told her the news. He noticed a small but bright red zit in that curved indentation on the side of the nose where zits liked to form.

“Patti?” he said quietly.

She didn’t wake up, didn’t stir.

“Patti?” A little louder, but only a little, not wanting to scare her, and no more effective. She was probably tired from her trip; had she taken the bus? The bus all the way from Denver? Nat remembered his last trip, a flight in a private jet with a black Z on the tail. He touched her shoulder.

Patti’s eyes opened. For an instant she didn’t know where she was. Then she saw it was him, and the look in her eyes changed completely. She smiled, a smile that could only be called sweet, as sweet, in fact, as he’d ever seen.

“Nat,” she said.

“Hi.”

She sat up. “Your hair’s longer. It looks nice.” Her hand moved, no more than an inch or so, as if she’d thought of touching his hair and reconsidered.

“I called you a couple times,” she said, “once from Chicago and once from… somewhere else. I can’t even remember, isn’t that weird? Especially since I was trying to take it all in.”

Like him, him until a little while ago, she’d never really been anywhere. Nat remembered the phone ringing while he’d been in the bedroom with Izzie. He had to tell Patti and tell her now. It would be too cruel to allow her another one of those sweet smiles. He forgot whatever it was he’d rehearsed, just opened his mouth and hoped something not too terrible would come out.

But Patti spoke first. “Oh, Nat,” she said, her voice suddenly unsteady. “I’m pregnant.”

Thoughts poured into Nat’s mind, first-whatever it said about him, good or bad-first came the knowledge of what Patti must have crossed out in her note: I missed my period. Then came more: it could only have been at Patti’s house, before Julie’s party, before the drinking. But they’d used a condom. That raised the possibility of some other guy. Man. Of some other man. Out of the question: he knew Patti, and she wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t him. It had to be true. Patti was pregnant and he was the… father. He squirmed from that idea, that word. But he knew there would be no getting away from it, he wouldn’t let himself get away from it, because he’d had a father, too; he’d had a father, briefly, a father who’d ignored his responsibility, who’d walked away.

“Nat?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you going to say something?”

He nodded. “How are you feeling?”

“Horrible.”

What was the name for it? It came to him. “From the morning sickness?” he said.

She smiled at him again, almost as sweetly as before. “Not that,” she said. “I feel great. My body feels great. Inside is where I’m so messed up.” Patti started crying, first just a silent tear or two, then, maybe catching some expression in his eyes, many more, and far from silent. “And now I’m messing you up too. The best thing that ever happened to me.” Or something like that. Nat couldn’t really tell because of the sobbing. He sat down on Wags’s couch and held her, awkwardly, sitting on the edge.

She leaned against him, leaned with all her weight, holding nothing back. “Oh, Nat,” she said.

He hugged her. If he’d been at all drunk before, physically or psychologically, he wasn’t now.

Her lips moved against his chest. “I can feel you thinking,” she said. Her voice vibrated through his skin. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” he said. But he did: he was remembering what had happened when they got to Julie’s party. Julie’s family had money, at least what he’d used to think of as having money. Julie’s father, brother of Mr. Beaman, Nat’s mother’s boss, was a pharmacist. They could afford to keep two or three horses in a barn behind their house. The loft had been turned into a guest bedroom. He and Patti had ended up there, in the bed where the vomiting incident happened. But before that, they’d been asleep. He’d awakened with Patti on top of him. She’d rolled off a moment or two later, saying she didn’t feel well. Had he been inside her? Had it happened then? He didn’t know. It was all vague, half remembered, half aware in the first place, the horses stirring uneasily beneath them the only sure thing.

“Are you mad at me?” Patti said.

“No.”

“Something, then.”

“No.”

“You’re thinking.”

“I’m not.”

But she was right. Thoughts like: Are you sure you’re pregnant? How do you know? Those remained unspoken: Patti wouldn’t have been here if she wasn’t sure. And: abortion. He didn’t even know where Patti stood on abortion. He assumed she was for it-he assumed he was for it-but they’d never discussed abortion, not the right and wrong of it. And then there was Patti’s uncle in Denver, a big red-faced Broncos fan who’d taken them to a game, bought them beer and hot dogs, screamed like a maniac at the ref; Patti’s uncle, the priest.

“Nat?”

“Yes.”

“What are we going-what should I do?”

He looked down at her: curly hair, pale face, blue-lit from the computer screen, against his chest, his shirt dampening with her tears. Her gaze shifted up to his, like a baby watching its mother. That was the image that came to mind, and he hated it.

“Do you love me,” she said, “just a little bit?”

He was silent.

“You don’t have to answer,” she said. “I’m sorry, sorry for everything.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said.

She clung to him. “You’re such a good person.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is.”

He didn’t love her. There had been times last summer when he’d thought maybe he did; now, because of the contrast with what he felt for Izzie, he knew for certain he never had. He also knew she was wrong: he had to answer the question. “I don’t love you, Patti,” he said. He said it as plainly as he could, deliberately closing the door to interpretation, but at the same time he held her tight, as tightly as he ever had. Completely crazy, but he couldn’t help it.

Patti sobbed. Half a sob, really, cut off sharply through an effort of will he could feel in the muscles lining her spine. After that, they were silent for what seemed like a long time. Blue-lit snow piled up on the window ledge; his shirt got damper. Then it got no damper, and later less and less, almost dry again.

The chapel bell tolled. Patti yawned, the kind of big yawn impossible to stifle.

“You’re tired,” he said.

“A little.” So quiet, both their voices, but very clear.

“Then sleep,” he said. “It can wait till tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?”

“We’ll think better in the morning.”