The Perfect Mother

by Aimee Molloy

  The baby’s mother, the former actress Gwendolyn Ross, was out for the evening with members of her so-called mommy group.

  Colette pauses; returns to the sentence: . . . people who may have been inside the home to exit via a door left unattended.

  Is that possible? Was the person who took Midas still inside when the police officers arrived? Is that why the side door of Winnie’s building was open?

  A few photos accompany the article. In one, Midas is lying on his back on a sheepskin rug next to a small plastic giraffe, staring into the camera, his skin porcelain, his brown eyes so shiny they look polished. In the photo below it, Winnie is on a blanket in the park, cradling Midas in her arms. Colette’s breath catches as she realizes it’s the photo she gave Detective Mark Hoyt yesterday, when he showed up at her apartment in the late afternoon, after Charlie had taken Poppy out running with him and she was preparing dinner.

  “What do you know about her background?” Hoyt asked her. “What kind of details did she share about herself?”

  There was something that seemed vaguely familiar about Winnie, Colette admitted. But it had been more than twenty years since she was on television, and Colette hadn’t made the connection between Winnie and Gwendolyn Ross, although she’d watched the show periodically. Sometimes, while the other girls at her school were getting together with bottles of wine and joints stolen from someone’s parents, Colette would convince her mother—on the rare weekend Rosemary wasn’t traveling for work—to join her on the couch, their faces sticky with the egg-white-and-honey mask Colette had read about in Seventeen magazine, a bowl of popcorn on the couch between them, watching Bluebird.

  The train arrives at Colette’s stop, and she climbs the stairs and makes her way through City Hall Park, past a crowd of tourists taking photos in front of the fountain. There was one interaction she had with Winnie that Colette hadn’t mentioned to Mark Hoyt, which she had remembered just the night before.

  It was the afternoon she and Winnie walked home together, after the very first May Mothers meeting. They’d taken their time, strolling along the park wall, staying in the shade. Colette can still smell the roasting nuts from the vendor at the corner, where Winnie stopped to buy a bag of cashews. It was here that Colette admitted, without planning to, how terrified she was when she learned she was pregnant.

  “I called the whole thing a mistake, for months,” Colette said. “I’m excited now, but it’s been a process. I was not ready for her.”

  Winnie’s expression was stark when she looked at Colette. “I can understand that.”

  “You can?” Colette asked, feeling flush with relief. Since joining May Mothers, she’d felt like an outsider—if not a total impostor—among the other women, who all seemed as if they’d spent their whole lives just waiting to become moms. Who’d spent years charting their cycles, taking their temperatures, their legs suspended in the air above them after sex, hoping this month was their time. Women like Yuko, who’d gone off the pill the night of her engagement. Scarlett, who’d become vegan, believing it would better prepare her body for pregnancy and birth. And Francie, who had shared, very early on in their meetings, the pain of enduring two miscarriages, finally conceiving after two rounds of IVF that left them thousands of dollars in debt.

  “What’s your story?” Colette asked Winnie. But she waved away the question.

  “We’ll save that for another time,” she said, rifling through her wallet. An older woman in front of them turned, a paper cup of roasted nuts in her hands. She smiled, noticing the rise of their bellies. The woman placed her free hand on Winnie’s arm. “You have no idea what you two are in for,” she said, her eyes moist. “The world’s most wonderful gift.”

  “That was sweet,” Colette said, after the woman walked away.

  “You think so?” Winnie wasn’t looking at her, though. She was staring past her, beyond the stone wall, into the park. “Why does everybody like to tell new mothers what we’re about to gain? Why does nobody want to talk about what we have to lose?”

  As she climbs the steps of City Hall, Colette’s thoughts turn to the caption she’d read under Midas’s photo: The baby’s Sophie the Giraffe, a plastic squeak toy from France popular with American parents, and a blue baby’s blanket are also missing. The police are asking anyone with information to call 1-800-NYPDTIP.

  Whoever took Midas, why would they take those things? It’s good news, Colette decides, stepping into the elevator. After all, only a person who loves him—or at least someone who doesn’t intend to hurt him—would think to also take his favorite blanket and toy.

  The question trails her as the elevator doors open on the fourth floor. The lobby is uncommonly quiet, and Allison is at her desk, staring at her computer. She looks up at the sound of Colette’s heels clicking on the marble floor.

  “Good afternoon,” Allison says, and Colette sees the images on Allison’s screen—a high chair, a car seat, a blue plastic tub in the shape of a whale.

  “Let me guess,” Colette says. “Baby registry?” Allison told Colette about her pregnancy a week earlier, in strict confidence. “I’m only eight weeks, so don’t tell anyone,” she said. “Especially Mayor Shepherd. He’s got enough to worry about with his election, and this book.”

  “This is crazy,” Allison says now, leaning in close. “I can’t believe all the stuff you need when you have a baby.”

  Colette glances at the computer screen. “You really don’t need all this. The kid will survive being cleaned with a room-temperature baby wipe.”

  “That’s what my sister said,” Allison says. “I guess I should trust the experts. Thanks. And guess what? He’s running late.”

  “You’re kidding.” Colette raises her eyebrows in feigned surprise. “Mayor Shepherd is running late?”

  Allison laughs. “He said you should drink all of his coffee. As punishment. I just made a fresh pot, and there’s some pastries in there from his early meeting.”

  “Thanks,” Colette says, suddenly aware of her hunger. She’s eaten very little since the french fries at the Jolly Llama two nights earlier, too consumed with worry about Midas to think about food.

  The mayor’s office is peaceful when she enters. Although she’s been coming here for the last several months, she can’t help but feel impressed each time. The large windows offering a view of the Brooklyn Bridge, the working fireplace, the desk that once belonged to James Baldwin—a gift from the family—it’s a far cry from the windowless principal’s office at Public School 212 in the Bronx where she and Teb had spent endless hours together four years earlier, working on his first memoir over takeout beer and burritos from the local taqueria. The book had done better than anyone expected, bringing front-page reviews, magazine profiles, a national speaking tour, and then, a year later, a successful run for the mayorship of New York. His publisher had offered him a fortune for a sequel focused on his relationship with his mother, a civil rights activist who’d marched with Martin Luther King Jr. on Selma.

  Colette pours herself a mug of coffee and takes a seat at the round table overlooking City Hall Park, trying not to feel annoyed at having to wait for him—yet again. She should take advantage of the time alone, time she can use to make progress on the new material she’s meant to deliver in a few days. She removes her laptop from her bag and opens the manuscript, skimming the chapters she sent Aaron Neeley, Teb’s chief of staff, the afternoon before. Her skin pricks with embarrassment. The pages are terrible. The writing is stilted and childish, the dialogue almost unreadable.

  She hears her phone beep with a new e-mail and reaches for it, grateful for the distraction. It’s Francie. She’s been in frequent contact with Nell and Francie over the last two days, sharing articles about “Baby Midas,” as he was quickly becoming known in the press, checking in, asking if anyone has heard from Winnie yet.

  Colette e-mailed Winnie the day before, and a few hours later, she responded.

  Who has my baby? How am I going to survive this?r />
  Colette wrote back immediately, asking if she wanted company, offering to drop off some groceries. But Winnie still hasn’t responded to Colette’s e-mail, or the text message she sent a few hours later.

  Did you guys see this? Francie wrote. Attached to her e-mail is a link to a crime blog—one of many that comprised an entire online world of amateur sleuths Colette hadn’t known existed before this: people who seemed to devote a surprising amount of time trying to unravel unsolved crimes. Colette reads the post:

  A neighbor said she passed a woman near Winnie’s apartment around 9:30 that night. She was walking down the hill carrying a crying baby that could have been Midas’s age.

  A new message from Nell arrives immediately. People are aware this is Brooklyn, right? They levy fines against women who live here and are not, at some point, seen carrying a crying baby.

  “Hey, Colette. Sorry about the wait.” Colette clicks her e-mail closed. Aaron Neeley is standing in the door. His shirt is wrinkled, and there’s a line of dark stubble at his chin that he missed while shaving.

  “Everything okay?” she asks.

  Aaron carries a stack of folders at his chest and places them, one by one, onto Teb’s desk. “Yeah, he’s meeting with Ghosh. This abduction thing. What a nightmare.” He glances at her. “I’m assuming you heard about it?”

  She clears her throat. She should explain the situation—she should tell Aaron that Winnie is a friend of hers, that she was there that night—but something tells her to wait, to speak to Teb about it privately. She knows what it might mean for him if it gets out that someone close to him is linked to this. “Yeah.”

  “How old is Patty now?”

  “Poppy. Almost eight weeks.”

  Aaron shakes his head. “The twins are seven. I can’t even imagine.”

  “What’s the latest?” Colette asks.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Ghosh is on the defensive. One of the officers—some young kid, a week out of police academy—really screwed things up. Didn’t use gloves, left his fingerprints all over the place. It’s a real mess.” Aaron sighs and then looks up at Colette. “Anyway, the mayor shouldn’t be long. Looking forward to discussing the stuff you sent yesterday. We’re getting down to the wire, huh?”

  “We sure are.” She turns toward her screen as Aaron leaves. Meeting with Rohan Ghosh. Ghosh and the mayor were friends at SUNY Purchase, and when Teb tapped Ghosh from his post as Cleveland’s deputy commissioner, everyone claimed it was a classic case of nepotism. Ghosh was largely considered the least experienced person to serve in the top position at the NYPD.

  Colette opens the manuscript again, doing her best to stay focused. Seeing the folders Aaron left on Teb’s desk, though, she wonders if they include his notes on the chapters she submitted yesterday. She stands and walks to the credenza for a Danish, glancing down at the stack. She stops, having to look twice to make sure she’s correctly read the name printed in wiry black handwriting on the tab of a manila folder on the top of the pile.

  Ross, Midas.

  Colette walks to the door and pushes it closed a few inches. Back at Teb’s desk, the Danish clutched in her hand, she opens the folder and peeks inside. There’s a photograph of a man. He’s tall and thin. He wears a hooded sweatshirt and is handing something to a store clerk. There’s another, taken from the same security camera, as he turns away from the counter, his face in profile. Then he’s walking toward the door and glancing up, straight into the camera. She fingers through the papers underneath: copies of handwritten notes; a photo of Midas’s crib, with mint-green sheets and a decal of thin, delicate birds taking flight on the wall above it. And then another of the man, this one crisp and in color. He’s of Middle Eastern descent, and he’s staring into the camera, sunglasses perched atop his head, balancing a baby on his forearm. The baby is partially covered with a blanket.

  She lifts the photograph for a closer look, but then hears footsteps outside the door. She quickly returns it to the stack, closes the folder, and rushes back to the table. The steps pass by outside Teb’s office, and she looks down at her notes—Teb’s story about finally confronting his mother’s abusive boyfriend—but she can’t get the image out of her mind. The man’s smile. His hands. How they cupped that baby’s skull.

  Who has my baby? How am I going to survive this?

  Before she can consider what she’s doing, Colette takes her purse from the chair beside her, walks to Teb’s desk, and places the folder in her bag. She walks calmly into the hall and down the corridor to the copy room, where she shuts the door and turns the lock. The sweat of her palms smears the ink of the stamp on the top of each paper—Highly Confidential—as she pages through the stack, knowing how significantly she’s breaching her contract with Teb. According to the confidentiality agreement she’s signed, she can’t access any information he hasn’t specifically shared with her. She can’t speak to anyone about the things she’s learned during the course of her work. She can’t even admit to anyone—“no relative, friend, member of the public”—that she’s the person who writes his books.

  There’s a knock on the door.

  “Hello?” It’s Allison. The doorknob turns. “Is someone in there?”

  Colette shoves the papers back into the folder and sets it under a box on a shelf above the copier. She grabs her bag from the floor and digs inside, unbuttoning the top four buttons of her shirt, revealing the upper edge of her nursing bra. She steadies her breathing before cracking open the door.

  “Sorry.” She offers Allison an apologetic smile and holds up her manual breast pump. “The mayor’s still not there, and I need to pump. The bathroom’s a little gross. That makes it difficult.”

  Allison’s forehead wrinkles in embarrassment. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry to disturb you. Of course. I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

  “You’re the best.” Colette relocks the door, and waits a few moments before reaching for the folder again. Ten minutes later, she’s back in the hall, walking slowly toward Allison. “See what you have to look forward to?”

  In Teb’s office, she returns the folder to the pile. She’s just sat down and opened the lid of her laptop when Teb walks in. He’s without his suit jacket, and his shirtsleeves are rolled to his elbows, the cotton stretching across the taut muscles of his back.

  “You hate me?” he asks, throwing a notebook onto his desk. His smile is wide and radiant—the smile now gracing billboards across the nation as part of the “True Heroes” ad campaign for Ralph Lauren—no signs of the difficult meeting he’s come from.

  “No, of course not, Mayor.”

  He grimaces. “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that? It sounds too weird, coming from you.”

  “Sorry. No, I don’t hate you, Teb Marcus Amedeo Shepherd.”

  “Whoa. No need to go crazy.” He flips through the folders Aaron left and then places them on the credenza beside his desk. “I have some bad news.”

  Her heart seizes. “About Midas?”

  “Midas?”

  She shakes her head. “Midas Ross. That baby in the news. Aaron said you were with Ghosh. I thought you were going to say—”

  “I was wondering if this was going to get to you. That baby’s the same age as Poppy.” He turns his back to her and pours himself a cup of coffee. “What kind of monster would take a baby?”

  “Do you have any—”

  He waves his hand, dismissing the question. “No, the bad news is not about him. It’s about you and me.” He turns toward her, and she braces herself. “I have to cancel on you. I didn’t get a chance to read what you sent yesterday, and now I have another meeting.”

  The tension in her chest dissolves with relief. She doesn’t have to spend the next hour talking about this awful book. She can get out of here, try to make sense of what she’s just read.

  “Teb—” She makes sure the word comes out annoyed.

  “I know,” he says. “I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. Can you come by tomorrow?”


  She begins to pack up her laptop and notebook. “Sure.”

  “No. Wait. I’m out on Long Island all day for a fund raiser. The day after?”

  She nods. “Whatever you need.”

  “Thanks, C.” He sits behind his desk, scrolling through his cell phone. “How’s my baby?”

  “Adorable.”

  “Yeah? She giving her mother any trouble? Because if she is, I’ll have a talk with her.”

  “I’m not sure even you are convincing enough, but feel free to tell her she better start sleeping through the night.”

  He keeps his eyes on his phone and reaches out his hand. “Let me see.” He looks up. “I need to see a recent photo.”

  Her phone is in her bag. Teb stands up, and she turns her back to him. She cautiously unzips her purse just as Aaron appears at the door.

  “Excuse me, sir, but they’re waiting for you. They don’t have much longer.”

  “Okay, I gotcha.” Teb takes a long drink of coffee and then sets the mug back on the credenza, next to the folders. “Text some to me,” he says, reaching to touch her arm on the way out.

  Colette says good-bye to Allison, and once outside, she walks quickly through the crowds, through air perfumed with the earthy scent of charred pretzel oil, and toward the subway. Inside the train, she takes an empty seat at the back of the chilly car. Ten minutes later, as the train emerges from the tunnel on to the Brooklyn Bridge, she watches the stream of pedestrians trudging down the pathway under the hot July sun. She takes out her phone, the tears stinging as she types.

  Are you guys free tomorrow morning to come to my place? I have something I need to tell you.

  Chapter Six

  Night Two

  I don’t know what to do.

  I’m trying to keep in mind the thing the doula told me: Deep breathing initiates the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-relax state. But it’s not working. My chest is too stiff, and I can’t get enough oxygen. I need to get out of here, breathe some fresh air, but the journalists are outside, circling, waiting to ask me questions. That guy from the Post, Elliott What’s-his-name, with his shlubby clothes and cheap haircut and oily skin, making his mother so proud to see his name in print. He’s there all the time, talking to the neighbors. Where were you that night? What do you think happened? What can you tell me about the mother?