These Doors Have Keys

The first time I met Natalie was on a Sunday. I was a sophomore at Columbia and fresh from church with my girlfriend, her parents and my own parents. Kara, my girlfriend, was wonderful and tried to make the best of a bad situation—her Protestant parents weren't exactly getting on well with my Roman Catholic parents—but I was irritated with her at the moment anyway. I told her church and brunch was the worst idea; she said that we needed to deal with this problem straight on and find a way to work around it.

Central Park was a good place to escape to. The one thing I hated about New York City was the lack of trees and greenery and animals. Growing up on a Connecticut farm makes you miss these things once they're gone.

The first time I met Natalie she didn't seem to notice me. I had taken a seat on a dark wooden bench and smoked a joint—a gift from an old high school friend who had come to visit during Christmas—while she sat on the grass held back by small, manicured hedges. I wouldn't have noticed her if she hadn't been so beautiful: petite, brunette, creamy and clear skin. She was alone except for a black and white cat that she was absentmindedly petting.

It was relaxing to sit there and get baked while staring at her. I would've felt like a creep if she would have looked up and acknowledged in some way that she was aware I was staring at her, but she didn't. Aside from the cat, I don't think she saw anyone that day.

From the first time I met Natalie, I was hooked.

I wasn't in love with her; Kara was the best part of my life, and I didn't believe in "love at first sight" anyway. She was just interesting. In the world that I came from, the world dominated by bankers and doctors and lawyers, nobody took their cat to the park and just enjoyed the day. But Natalie looked as though that moment was the best part of her week.

Every Sunday for the rest of my sophomore year at Columbia I went to the park, never realizing that I was holding my breath as I looked around for her until I saw her rumpled brown hair and exhaled deeply. Something about her was calming; she was consistent, yet she was a break from the monotony of my life.

The first time I spoke to Natalie was almost a year and a half after the very first Sunday. My usual Sunday joint had turned into a steaming cardboard cup from Starbucks and Newsday. A few minutes after I had sat down on my bench (or at least it felt like mine, as I had been it's only occupant for the past forty Sundays), she had cautiously approached with the black and white cat cuddled in her arms.

"Hello," she had said simply as she sat down beside me. Then she had added her name and extended a hand, keeping the other arm securely wrapped around her cat.

"Will," I had replied, taking her small hand in mine.

Growing up I never had patient for long conversations with people, no matter how much I enjoyed their companionship. That Sunday Natalie and I talked for three hours.

She was nineteen years old, almost four years younger than me. She lived in the Bronx, which made her commute to the park all the more interesting to me. Her cat's name was Alfred, and she had found him hiding amongst the bushes in the area when he was a kitten. She wanted to be a composer, a great like Handel and Vivaldi.

After I had shared my life story with her—a tale that isn't remotely interesting and that I decline to tell people usually—the secrets came tumbling from Natalie's lips. She wasn't going to college. She couldn't because there was no way she could leave her mother, who only ever wanted the company of the powdery substances she snorted and the addictive things she injected. She was a dancer at a gentleman's club. The reason she came to the park was because it was far away from the life that she desperately wanted to escape from.

In the eight years that have passed since I first met Natalie, we've spent four hundred and sixteen Sundays together. Aside from major events in our lives—such as my wedding to Kara, and Alfred's emergency visit to the vet one evenings—we don't see each other on the remaining six days of the week. She once joked that she would be embarrassed to tell people she knew that she was friends with an Upper West Sider.

As much as I cared about Natalie and treasured our Sundays, every time I watched her small figure recede into the hordes of people that frequented the park, I hoped that we had just shared our final goodbye. She deserved more, she needed more. And even though Natalie had since given up the desire to do something with her life for herself, I often found myself desperately trying to persuade her to look into school. She never took it seriously, always joking that I should've been a lawyer instead of a broker.

Our four hundred and seventeenth Sunday shouldn't have been anything special. That morning when I walked into the park I didn't think that this would be a day of any significance. However, when Natalie arrived in a pair of ratty jeans and a jacket, a scarf loosely cradling her neck and Alfred sitting in her arms as always, she had a new look of determination on her face.

Dealing with her mother and living with the knowledge that she was a stripper had worn down the happy glow in Natalie's face over the years. Sometimes I thought I glimpsed the happy-go-lucky eighteen year old that I had first spied all of those years ago, but as soon as it had come, the semblance would leave.

That Sunday Natalie was grinning. "I'm leaving," she announced as she came to a stop before me.

"Nat, that's amazing," I instantly replied, although there was a small pang of regret. I was going to miss her more than I had ever missed another person. "Where are you going?"

"Berklee," she said, her face radiant, "It's in Massachusetts."

"Why all of the sudden?" I asked her.

She momentarily became serious and somber. "If I don't leave now, I'm never going to," she explained. "I can't help her, and I'm tired of letting her wear me down. As much as I love her, I have to do this for me." Her mother was never referred to as anything except for "her".

Biting her lip, she stared down at Alfred's white and black head. "Will," she murmured, "I've never asked you for anything."

"I know," I nodded, thinking of all the times I offered Natalie a multitude of helpful things: money, life counselors, a place to stay. "What do you need, Nat?"

Her almond shaped eyes were watery when she looked up. "Can-can you take Alfred for me?" she finally responded.

My eyes dropped to the black and white cat. She was really leaving. There was nothing that could have parted Natalie and Alfred other than her decision to leave and embark on the next step in her life. I nodded as I reached out and patted Alfred's soft head. "Yeah," I nodded, throat thick with a surplus of emotion, "I'll take care of Alfred."

She pulled me in for a one armed hug before she slid the cat into my grip. He tried to clamber back to her, and I circled both arms around his furry form. "Thank you so much for everything, Will," she smiled, droplets of water dancing below her eyes. "You were the only friend I ever really had."

I cleared my throat and playfully admonished, "Hey, don't let Alfred hear you say that." But no matter how hard I tried to joke, I couldn't stop my own eyes from watering. I was afraid of life without her. "Call me as soon as you get to Boston?"

"Yeah," she responded, smiling again. "I will, I promise. I have to go home and get some stuff, and my train leaves at six so it might be late when I get in."

I took one of her hands and squeezed it. "I love you, Nat."

Her smiling lips quivered, and she ducked in to kiss Alfred's head before she planted a kiss on my cheek. "Thank you so much, Will."

Alfred and I stood there until we couldn't decipher her wavy brown hair from the tourists and exercisers and pedestrians in the park. Even after she was long gone, I couldn't move. It was what I had always wanted; I just hadn't anticipated that the finale would hurt so badly.

The following week was stressful. Natalie never called, and while Kara tried to convince me that perhaps she had just forgotten or been busy with getting settled, I felt sick the entire week. I thought Alfred felt it too, but he was just a cat. At the most, he was probably just confused as to where the girl that had reared him from childhood had gone.

I had no reason to go to the park that Sunday. But I couldn't help it. I knew Natalie was far away, but nevertheless I collected my drink from Starbucks, the daily issue of Newsday and Alfred's new leash before walking to the park.

It was a beautiful morning, a morning that Natalie would've appreciated. On mornings that were particularly glorious, she used to force Alfred and me to walk with her around the park. Alfred seemed to be recalling this as we made it to my bench, and as I scanned the newspaper, he walked around in little circles, pawing at bugs on the ground every so often.

A friend of mine had recently been demoted to the wedding announcement section in Newsday, and just to inspect his new work, I flipped to that section first. However, a few pages early, I was stopped by a headline and a smiling picture.

"Local Bronx Girl Found Dead in Home; Mother Indicted on Charges of Murder," read the bolded, glaring headline.

Natalie's radiant face smiled up at me from the page. It was a picture that I had never seen of her before, not that I had seen many pictures of her. She looked to be around sixteen, and her happiness made sense; sixteen had been before her father died, when she had first gotten Alfred and previous to her mother's drug problem.

It took me several tries, but eventually I found the strength to read the article. The confirmation came in the form of the very first sentence: "Natalie Connolly, 24, was found dead in her home Sunday night."

I didn't finish reading the article, nor did I move from my place on the bench. I simply sat there, watching Alfred battle with a caterpillar. And when I couldn't sit any longer, I picked Alfred up and went home.

It wasn't the ending Natalie deserved; it certainly wasn't the ending that anyone who knew her would have predicted. And although there was a terrifying sadness that I was barely keeping at bay and immense anger at a mother who didn't have the decency to let her child go, in a way I was relieved.

She was finally free.

The last time I met Natalie was on a Sunday. She had entrusted me with her most prized possession, a black and white cat named Alfred. She had thanked me, for what I'm not entirely sure. But the last time I met Natalie, she was leaving. The last time I met Natalie, she was smiling and excited. The last time I met her she had found her path, which is all I ever wanted for her.