Notes: This chapter features the former Fairhaven Home For Girls, situated in Tahoe Park, Sacramento, now a retirement home. For images of this location, please refer to my AO3 account under the same name.
Chapter Six
The drive was long and quiet. Hawkeye slumped silently in his seat, staring out of the window as BJ paid far more attention to the straight, empty freeway than was strictly necessary. As the car rumbled along the tarmac, it occurred to Hawkeye that this was probably exactly the same route that Emily had taken to get out here back in August. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. It was an eerie, thought, but not one that was entirely unpleasant. Not quite that of someone walking over his grave, but maybe that of walking over someone else's and getting chills on their behalf. He was following the path of a living ghost.
Gradually, sprawling city suburbs gave way to towns, which in turn faded to fields and farms, and they found themselves in open countryside. It was quite beautiful.
Would it have looked that much different in the late summer? Hawkeye tried to picture the fields lush with crops, ready for harvest. What would Emily have seen from her window as she travelled this road? Would she have seen anything at all? They probably crept out to the car in the darkness and driven up in the dead of night, judging by what BJ had said.
August. Where had Hawkeye been in August? He'd spent that first couple of months of unemployment lollygagging around his apartment while his father tried to persuade him to pull himself together. He'd started by doing a few shifts at the family practice, but being around people all day and having to act… well, normal was too much. The stress got to him and he'd carried on drinking, just like he had in Korea. By the Fall, he was a part-time doctor, part-time alcoholic. His father had slipped an AA leaflet into his in-tray one afternoon. Hawkeye had binned it and started hiding his empties better.
Once they hit Sacramento, BJ prodded Hawkeye out of his reminiscence and got him to navigate. The address, and Hawkeye's dubious skills with a map, eventually got them to Tahoe Park, a spacious, and pleasantly green area of Sacramento just off the Lincoln Freeway.
At last, they pulled over at the side of 63rd Street, in a non-descript patch of suburbia.
"Is this it?" Hawkeye asked.
"Four-five-zero-zero," BJ read off the mail box, double checking the address on his notes.
Squinting through the foliage, Hawkeye could just about make out a building, set back from the road, hidden behind a high hedge and an enormous, looming oak tree. "Oh yeah," he muttered, and the haunted feeling he'd gotten back on the freeway kicked itself up a notch.
Getting out of the car, he suddenly remembered the tear in his jacket, and took it off, folding it over his arm in such a way that the damage was suitably concealed. The evening chill struck him through his thin cotton shirt with unexpected crispness. The sun was deceptive. Hawkeye cast a glance upwards: the sky above them was still blue, and it stretched out forever. They'd only been on the road a couple of hours, but suburban Sacramento felt a world away from the bustling metropolis of San Francisco and the rocky hills of Mill Valley. Everything about this place was flat: the buildings, the land. Acre after acre of low, sprawling homes and straight, unwavering roads stretched out in every direction. Hawkeye shivered.
"Do you want your coat?" BJ asked him, gesturing to the beige trench coat Hawkeye had abandoned in the car that morning.
"No," Hawkeye replied with another tremor. He shoved his hands in his pockets and slammed the door with his hip.
They walked together up to the front gate – a steel barred effort with an archway of the same material, across which several letters had been moulded, spelling 'FAIR HAVEN'. They both noticed it, and Hawkeye gave BJ a knowing look. "Cute!"
The gravel path crunched under their feet, announcing their arrival to anyone who may have been listening, but if anyone was, they didn't see fit to make themselves known in return. Looking up, Hawkeye was met with a long, low building. Two rows of small, dark windows – a dozen each, top and bottom – ran the length of it, with a neat little porch stuck on the front like an afterthought. The doorway was all crisp white paintwork with concrete steps leading up. There were pansies set in the planters, pretty bursts of colour in between benches that nobody sat on, and above them, an American flag hung limply from a flagpole on the lawn, sad and still in the breezeless air.
At the foot of the steps, Hawkeye was struck once again by the awful feeling that he was walking in Emily's footsteps. Had she lingered here, as he did now, or had she strode inside with her head high, refusing to let the situation drag her down? Hawkeye hoped it was the latter. Faltering, he reached out, wrapping his fingers around BJ's sleeve like a small child seeking comfort. BJ looked back at him. "Come on, you can do this."
Still Hawkeye held back.
Turning to face him and lowering his voice, BJ grasped his shoulders and whispered, "Come on, Hawk! You got this far. Don't back out now. Think about what Emily went through, huh? The least you can do is make it through the damned door!" His words were harsh, but his tone soft. It hurt him to speak to his friend like this but he knew Hawkeye would hate himself if he turned away at the last hurdle.
"It's not that." Hawkeye's voice was weak. "It's just… this is the end of the line. Unless we hit a really unlikely jackpot – like if someone here takes a shine to me and decides to help us out – once this is over, I'm walking away with nothing."
BJ didn't have the heart to deny that Hawkeye was probably right, so instead he clung to the tiniest hope, and he tried – he really, desperately tried – to put himself in Hawkeye's shoes. "It's worth a shot, though – right? I mean come on – we drove all the way out here!" BJ gestured to the daunting stucco monolith that stood behind him, glinting in the California sun. "Look, I can't begin to understand what you're going through, but all I know is this: if someone took Erin from me, I'd have chased down every lead I could get a sniff of if there was even a chance of getting her back. Come on, Hawk. You're a parent! I know you want to do this!"
"Am I?" Hawkeye stared at him. "I don't feel like one. I mean what have I done so far? I failed to ingratiate myself to my would-be in-laws, I got thrown out of the psychiatric hospital, and last night I drank myself to unconsciousness because I couldn't handle the pressure! I'm not a father. Let's face it, my entire contribution to this mess clocks in at one drunken tumble behind the chopper pad and one army-issue prophylactic with a hole in it! Those things don't make me a father – they make me a sleazy lothario with a case of bad luck!"
"Are you seriously telling me you want to give up? After we came all this way? We're standing on the doorstep and you just quit?"
Hawkeye looked frantic, glancing about himself for an explanation for the mess of emotion that had swept over him. "Is that so bad? The kid's got a home – they've sorted that! Emily got locked up for all of her optimism – so that's one parent down. I may as well check out too." He ducked his head, staring at his shoes. He didn't want to see BJ's disappointment in him.
Sighing, BJ clasped Hawkeye's hands in his own, reliving every time he'd ever had to haul his friend through a breakdown. He'd lost count of them, and even now, back on home soil, with no shells or gunfire, or mutilated bodies waiting on stretchers. It was like Hawkeye's own personal war had never ended. "You're not quitting," BJ said gently. "You're angry. As long as you're angry, there's still some fire in you, and you'll fight 'til you've got nothing left to give. I know it's what you want to do, because it's what I'd do for Erin. I'd tear down walls with my bare hands to get to my child, and I know you would too. And if you walk away now, all that anger's gonna go someplace else, and I don't think I wanna see what might happen if it does."
"I just… can't see how there's gonna be a happy ending for me. I really can't. You were right, Beej – I invested too much, and now I don't know if I'm ready for it to be over."
"So, what's the alternative? You run away and spend the rest of your life wondering? Torture yourself with possibilities and maybes and what ifs for a few weeks, and then see if it's any easier? Because it won't be. We could drive out here every weekend for a decade and you'll never feel ready. There's never a good time for bad news. You're a doctor – you know this – but you have to see this through. You're here now, you made it this far, and there are answers in that building! You owe it to Emily. You owe it to yourself. And you owe it to your child."
Hawkeye lifted his head. Tears glinted in his eyes as he looked up at the building, with its neat little windows and its nauseating flowers. "What if the answer's 'no'?"
"Then the answer's 'no', but you may as well find out now."
Hawkeye frowned. He stared at the steps for a moment or two, feeling for all the world like he was standing at the foot of Everest. Looking up, he shot BJ a weak smile, and with some effort, turned it into one of his trademark smirks. "Why do you have to be so…"
"Sensible?" BJ offered.
"Right." Hawkeye corrected him. "You've logicked me into submission, you jerk."
BJ beamed with pride. "Come on then!"
Spurring himself on, Hawkeye made it up the steps ahead of his friend. The door was locked, but a shiny brass doorbell graced the frame on the left hand side. Hawkeye pressed it, and gave BJ a look that said 'look how proactive and brave I'm being'. Inside, he wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.
The door opened, and a young girl blinked out at them. "Yes?"
Hawkeye swallowed and tried to remember how to form sentences. "Uh… hi." That, he thought, was not a sentence. "I'm Doctor Pierce, and I was wondering–"
"Visitors check in at reception," the girl told him in a meek voice. She stood back from the door to let them pass. They stepped inside and she directed them to a large wooden structure not unlike the ticket sales booths at a major railway station. Frosted glass separated them from the office beyond, and a small window allowed visitors to converse with the staff.
"Thanks," Hawkeye said to the girl. He gave her a warm smile. She looked like she needed it.
She couldn't have been more than fifteen. She was heavily pregnant and carrying a mop, a pail of water at her feet. A floral pinafore hung loosely over her clothes, its short straps no longer able to be buttoned over her bump. Wordlessly, she moved the mop over the patch of tiled floor where the men had walked, clearing the evidence of their grubby footprints.
"Sorry about your floor," BJ said.
She stared back at him blankly. "'S alright." With visible effort, but with almost nervous haste, she hauled her pail of water off the linoleum and struggled away, off down a side corridor. Hawkeye winced on her behalf. He shot BJ a look somewhere between pity and rage. Was this how they treated the girls here? Was Emily subjected to this kind of servitude during her stay?
"Don't go there." BJ seemed to read his mind as he rang the bell at the window.
"I'm already there," Hawkeye replied with a bitter smile. "The scenery's nice but the people are assholes."
"Hawk…"
The window opened with a creak and a rattle, and a young woman peeked out at them from the office. "Yes? Can I help you?"
"Probably not, but I'm a glutton for punishment." Hawkeye smiled warmly and shook her hand through the little hatch. "My name's Doctor Benjamin Franklin Pierce, and I'm here about one of your girls."
"A doctor?" She gave him a puzzled look. "For one of the girls? Did somebody call you?"
"Oh no, no," Hawkeye reassured her. "Nobody called me. I'm here for… uh, personal reasons."
The puzzled clerk continued to look at him, waiting for a further explanation.
"You had a resident here – a Miss Emily Winters – checked in around August last year, left February just gone. See, she sent me a letter a while back, but I haven't been able to…" He trailed off, and tried again. "I have reason to believe…" No, that wasn't quite right either. He took a deep breath. "I'm the father," he stated at last, without a shred of hesitation in his voice.
The young woman stared at him for a moment, as if she recognised him. "You're Hawkeye."
Now it was Hawkeye's turn to stare. "You know me?"
"She talked about you." Her voice was soft, her tone warm.
Hawkeye wanted desperately to ask her for details, but those four little words were enough of an insight to set his heart soaring. But he had a dreadful feeling that if he let it out of its cage, it would only get broken, so instead, he shot BJ a playful smirk – one that covered a genuine, delighted smile. "My reputation precedes me."
"Apparently." BJ returned his smile with a slightly forced one of his own. He knew this side of his friend was only masking an intense vulnerability, and it probably wasn't about to do him any favours.
"They're not supposed to," the office girl explained quietly, "but Emily was older, so she rebelled at first." Her tone showed admiration, but the words 'at first' did an excellent job of stamping out the embers of hope it had kindled in Hawkeye's spirit. "Fathers are strictly off-limits for the girls, by the supervisor's orders."
"Oh, I'm off-limits. That's good to know. Why break the habits of a lifetime?"
Regarding him with a curious look, the woman nudged a visitors' book across her little desk. "She likes things done a certain way, and rule number one is no contact with the baby's father. No talking about, no letters, no phone calls, and definitely no visits." Maybe it was Hawkeye's hopeful imagination, but her matter-of-fact spiel seemed to have something of an apology to it. But clearly she could say nothing further on the subject and handed Hawkeye a pen. "I'll have to ask you to sign in," she said, in something that approached an official tone. "I'll go fetch the supervisor."
"Please do. Ask her to be gentle with me."
The girl vanished from her little window, disappearing out of the back of the office to fetch the supervisor – the woman of whom she had already painted a formidable picture.
Hawkeye had visions of Margaret, circa 1951, appearing in a civilian uniform and screeching at him for fooling around with the nurses. He laughed for a moment, and glanced at BJ. "Major Houlihan, please report to reception. Doctor Pierce needs his afternoon spanking."
BJ rolled his eyes as he signed his name. "Quit horsing around."
"I can give you horsing around, or I can give you bolting like a terrified mule."
"Okay, I'll take the horsing around. Just… try and talk like a normal human being once we get in, hmm?"
"Impressions were never my forte. I can do Groucho, but that's it."
"Do yourself a favour: expand your repertoire." BJ signed Hawkeye's name for him and dropped the pen on the desk.
As he did so, the double doors at the far end of the lobby swung open, and a stout, diminutive woman stepped through. She was short, round and smiling, quite the opposite of the stern woman Hawkeye had imagined. "I believe someone requires my assistance? I'm Harriet Gladstone – Miss. I'm the senior social worker in this establishment." She spoke with a lilting Southern drawl, soft and soothing. Her wide, kindly eyes danced between the two of them, curious, her smile never fading. "Which one of you gentlemen is Doctor Pierce?"
"That's me," Hawkeye replied, extending a hand to her. "I hope you don't mind, I brought a friend."
"I understand entirely," she sympathised, taking his hand and clasping it in her own for a moment. "If you wouldn't mind, though, let's head round to my office. It's probably best we don't expose the girls to such a… delicate conversation. This way."
She beckoned them off down a corridor. Hawkeye and BJ followed obediently, holding back a little and walking side by side, noting the closed doors and occasional, barely detectible, sounds of hushed female voices, sometimes even giggling. But the mothers were otherwise invisible.
At last they reached the office, the door was opened and she led them inside. "Please, take a seat," Miss Gladstone instructed them, gesturing to the comfortable, if humble, furnishings.
The office was small and bare – dull magnolia walls and glossy magnolia woodwork. A small window looked out onto an enclosed courtyard, and in the distance, Hawkeye could see one lone figure making slow, halting progress around its perimeter.
They sat as instructed, Hawkeye in front of the desk, BJ just off to his right. Miss Gladstone closed the door.