The Perfect Mother

by Aimee Molloy

  I pace. Up and down the hall, instinctively avoiding the creaky sixth floorboard in front of the nursery. I keep the curtains closed. I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. I don’t want one more visit from a detective, asking if I can talk, wondering if there’s anything else I can add.

  I have nothing to add. How can I, when I remember so little—when the details of that night come and go, like a rapid blur of static events.

  I remember reading Nell’s e-mail, suggesting a night out, a few hours away from the babies.

  I remember thinking no, of course I won’t go to that. But then I kept re-reading the e-mail, considering it. Nell was so persistent. Everyone come, and especially Winnie. We won’t take no for an answer.

  Fine, I hastily decided. I won’t give no for an answer. I’ll give yes for an answer! And why not? I deserved a night out as much as anyone. I deserved to have fun. Why did I always have to be the one person staying home, obsessing about a baby, when every other mother in the world seems to have no problem going out, celebrating a holiday, having a drink or two? They’re somehow able to effortlessly navigate this new world. So calm. So confident. So fucking perfect.

  Why couldn’t I be more like them?

  I got dressed. I remember that. I remember choosing the dress that cinches me at the waist like a strong pair of hands. I remember walking into the bar, spotting them, tired eyes rimmed in kohl liner, black circles tempered under too much concealer, lips shimmering with the lipstick they hadn’t worn in months.

  “Rebel Yell.” I sang along, danced, part of them, all members of the same exclusive tribe. I remember feeling ill all of a sudden, like I needed to get out of there. But then that guy appeared out of nowhere. Offering to buy me a drink, with his deep ocean eyes, his full lips. Guys like him: they’ve gotten me into trouble my whole fucking life.

  I remember very little after that.

  Sometimes, when I close my eyes and try to sleep, I can see myself walking along the park, staying in the shadows. I prayed.

  Dear Lord, please give me Joshua back. I’ll do anything.

  “Are you all right?”

  I’d taken a seat on the bench, and a man was standing in front of me, a dog at his ankles, his face shadowed by the streetlamp behind him. I still don’t know if he was real, or another hallucination.

  Why did he leave me? I wanted to yell at this man. I don’t deserve this, not after everything I did for him.

  “I’m fine,” I told the man with the dog after he sat down on the bench beside me, his thigh touching mine, his arm draped across the bench behind me. “Thank you. I just need to talk to someone.”

  That’s all I wanted to do. Really. Just talk to Joshua. Tell him that being with him is the only thing that’s ever mattered to me. Let him know about the letters I’ve been writing him, maybe offer to read one or two, so he’d know exactly how I feel, and how much I still want him. How sorry I am for anything I may have done wrong.

  No, Detective, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any of this.

  Sorry, chubby Elliott reporter guy. I have nothing else to add.

  My hand is shaking as I write this. I feel weak and confused. I tried so hard to be a good mother. I did my best, really I did.

  My god, what have I done?

  Chapter Seven

  Day Three

  To: May Mothers

  From: Your friends at The Village

  Date: July 7

  Subject: Today’s advice

  Your baby: Day 54

  Let’s talk tummy time! Placing your baby on her belly is critical—even if it’s just for ten minutes every few hours or so. Time on her tummy will help strengthen her stomach and neck muscles, and by now, while on her belly, she should be reaching for toys, your fingers, or even your nose. (Might also be time to invest in those baby nail clippers!)

  Francie catches her crimped reflection in the brushed silver of the elevator doors, avoiding the way the straps of the Moby Wrap accentuate her muffin top; how short she is next to Nell, who stands next to her, at least four inches taller, pulling off the daring blond pixie, the sprawling tattoo. Francie smooths down her curls, wishing she’d had time to wash her hair, or at least apply a coat of mascara and lip gloss. But this morning has been particularly rough. Will woke up at five o’clock, crying for an hour, refusing to nurse.

  Francie leans forward and peeks down her shirt, at the slices of potatoes she stuck inside her bra earlier this morning.

  Nell glances at her. “You making hash browns in there?”

  “No.” Francie adjusts the potatoes to cover the hot, red lump. “Scarlett told me to do this.” Convinced she had a clogged duct, Francie went to Scarlett for advice. She is one of those moms—the ones who seem to naturally know exactly what to do, always e-mailing the group with helpful tips: twelve chamomile tea bags in the bath to cure Yuko’s baby’s diaper rash, a review of the new swaddle on back order at the baby boutique near the Starbucks.

  I’m glad you asked, because I have just the trick, Scarlett wrote to Francie last night, in response to her frantic request for help. First, NO CAFFEINE. Second, a layer of organic potatoes inside the bra for three hours each morning. I know it sounds odd, but it should bring immediate relief. It has been five hours of potatoes, though, and Francie’s breast still burns. She’s berating herself for going against her better judgment and buying the nonorganic potatoes early this morning, just to save three dollars. She should have heeded Scarlett’s exact advice and splurged. That’s probably why it isn’t working.

  The elevator doors open, and they make their way to 3A, where Colette opens the door before they can even knock. Francie blushes at the sight of Colette, who is topless, her full breasts spilling from a lacy pink bra, her arms and belly a constellation of cinnamon freckles.

  “Sorry,” Colette says, tying her hair back, the hard dots of fresh hair growth visible at her armpits. “The baby just spit up all over my last clean shirt.” She ushers them into the living room. “I folded clothes this morning, and when I went to put them away, Charlie told me I’d just folded two hampers full of dirty laundry. I could have murdered someone.”

  “Really?” Francie says, but she’s too enraptured by Colette’s apartment to have heard what she said. Other than Winnie’s, she’s never been inside such a nice New York apartment. The shiny wood floors. The living room big enough to fit two couches and two armchairs. The dining table under the wall of large windows, with space to sit ten. This room alone is bigger than Francie’s entire apartment, which is so small they can’t have anyone over for dinner; where she has to keep the baby’s clothes in plastic bins in the corner of their only bedroom; where she has to nurse in the living room, in view of the residents of the luxury building that recently went up across the street. Lowell has been after her to consider a bigger place, farther out in Brooklyn, perhaps even Queens, but Francie won’t hear of it, not with the school district they’re in. They need to suck it up, for the baby, for the neighborhood, for the promise of a quality education.

  “How’d it go?” Colette asks Nell.

  Nell drops heavily onto the couch. “Awful.” She e-mailed them yesterday, saying she’d fired Alma and was dropping Beatrice off at her first day at Happy Baby Daycare, to get her used to it for a few hours today before starting there full-time in two days, when she returns to work. “Hysterical crying. It was a total scene. All the other moms were staring.”

  “Did they know how to comfort Beatrice?” Francie asks.

  “Not Beatrice,” Nell says. “Me.” She wipes her nose with the wet, crumpled Kleenex in her fist. “I made a bloody fool of myself.”

  Colette sits beside Nell and puts an arm around her, but Francie feels frozen in place. How can Nell do this? Leave her baby, all day, in the care of total strangers? The best thing you can do, for at least the first six months, is to hold the baby as much as possible. A day-care worker or nanny isn’t going to do that. Sometimes, while feeding Will, Francie will get on her phone and re
ad the most recent posts at isawyournanny.com, a forum for parents to post sightings of the things they witness nannies doing to children—ignoring them, yelling at them, talking on their phone while the child plays alone.

  “It’s going to be fine, right?” Nell asks, digging in her purse for a clean tissue. “They won’t break her?”

  “Of course it’ll be fine,” Colette says. “Millions of women do this every day.”

  “I know.” Nell nods. “And for what we’re paying at that place, I expect I’ll return later this afternoon to find her with buffed nails, cucumber slices on her eyes, a chalice of milk at her elbow.” She wipes her eyes, leaving a smear of black mascara along her right cheek. “I feel so bad about firing Alma, but what was I supposed to do? She’s being hounded by journalists. I don’t want Beatrice around that.”

  “It’s disgusting,” Colette says. “Charlie brought home the paper this morning. There’s a photo of her at the playground with her daughter. They ran her out of the place.”

  “I’m a wreck,” Nell says. “I’m at Sebastian’s throat all day. Everything he says annoys me. And the baby’s waking every few hours again.”

  Colette goes to the kitchen, taking a paper dessert box from the counter. “Not much help, but I got chocolate-chip muffins today. Thought you could use one of these.” She puts the muffins on a plate and sets them on the coffee table before heading down the hall toward the bedrooms in the back. “I need to find a shirt. Coffee’s made, if you want it.”

  Nell takes a seat on the couch. “Not me. I’ve had four cups already.”

  Francie walks into the kitchen, which is separated from the living room by a large butcher’s-block island. She slides her hand along the smooth wood and the spotless white countertop to the double farmhouse sink. She pauses before opening the refrigerator, examining the array of Polaroids stuck to the door. Poppy, lying on a soft pink bedspread, propped up on a nursing pillow. Colette and a tall, handsome man Francie assumes is Charlie, their tan, toned arms clasped around each other’s waists, Colette’s long auburn hair beach-blown and wild, her face spattered with a map of fresh freckles. A note in male handwriting, curled and paled by the sunlight streaming in the large window nearby:

  Attention all kitchen utensils, unfinished books, “useless childhood artifacts,” and general household objects: take heed. Colette Yates is nesting. None of you are safe.

  Colette appears in a man’s white T-shirt that swallows her. “You know her?” Nell asks Colette. Nell’s standing in front of a bookshelf, holding a framed photograph in her hand.

  Colette glances at Nell and then walks into the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “She’s my mom.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Who?” Francie says. Nell turns the photograph, and Francie walks to take a closer look. It’s an image of an older woman with a crisp white bob, standing on a paddleboard, her arms raised triumphantly overhead.

  “Rosemary Carpenter.” By the stunned look on Nell’s face, it’s apparent Francie is supposed to know who that is.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know her.”

  “She started WFE,” Nell says.

  Francie is shocked. “The wrestling organization?”

  Colette and Nell laugh, and Francie’s face warms with embarrassment.

  “No,” Nell says. “Women for Equality. The feminist organization.”

  “Actually, it is kind of like a wrestling organization,” Colette says.

  Nell puts the photograph back. “My mom gave me a signed copy of her book for my high school graduation.”

  “Funny,” Colette says. “So did mine.”

  Francie is unsure of what she’s supposed to say, wondering why it is that everyone in New York City seems either to be a famous person or know one. Winnie. Colette’s mother. The only famous person Francie ever met before moving to New York was the owner of the largest chain of car dealerships in western Tennessee, whose family portrait she assisted with at the photography studio where she worked.

  “What was that like?” Nell asks Colette.

  “You mean, being the daughter of the woman known to coin the phrase ‘The only thing worse for a woman than making herself dependent on a man—’”

  Nell finishes her sentence: “‘—is to have a child dependent on her.’”

  “How awful,” Francie says before she can help herself.

  “It was complicated, but we can’t get into that right now. Charlie will be back soon, and I have something I need to share with you.”

  “Is it about Midas?” Francie asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about things.” Francie releases Will from the Moby Wrap and sets him on the floor before taking the notebook from her diaper bag. She kneels on the soft area rug and opens the notebook to the timeline she’s made of the night, including who was there, and what time they left. “I’ve been trying to piece together a clear chain of events, see if there might be someone who can fill in the holes. Where was Winnie? What time did she leave? Who, if anyone, did she leave with?”

  Nell sits on the floor beside Francie.

  “The police work on this—something isn’t right,” Francie says. “Lowell’s uncle is in law enforcement. I’ve been reading the news to him, and he’s appalled by how many mistakes the police have made. Did you see this?” Francie searches her bag for the article by Elliott Falk she printed from the New York Post’s website this morning. “Apparently someone opened the windows in Midas’s room and moved his crib sheets before photographs were taken.”

  “And did you read the article yesterday?” Colette asks. “Suggesting the person who took Midas could have been inside the house when the police arrived?”

  “I know, I saw that too,” Nell says. “Is that why the door was open when we got there?”

  “Let’s start with how someone got in.” Francie sits back. “Nell, I have to ask you again. Have you given any more thought to her key and phone? Any idea at all what may have happened? They couldn’t have just disappeared.”

  Nell keeps her gaze on Francie’s notebook. “I don’t know. I put her phone in my purse. I know I did. You guys watched me.”

  “When you dropped your purse, and things scattered, do you think the phone fell out? Maybe it slid under a nearby table?”

  “I dropped my purse?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Francie tries to keep the irritation from her voice. “When you were trying to find Winnie’s phone?”

  “Right,” Nell says, but Francie can hear the uncertainty. “I don’t think her phone fell out.”

  “Walk me through what you do remember,” Francie says.

  Nell presses her hands to her eyes. “I went to the waitress station to order the fries. A little while later, I went to the bar for a drink with Scarlett. We came back—”

  “No, you’re wrong.” Francie knew it. Nell was even drunker than she’d thought. “Scarlett wasn’t there.”

  “She wasn’t?”

  Francie feels a fresh flood of remorse. Why had she trusted Nell with Winnie’s phone? She was well aware that Nell had had too much to drink. Why hadn’t she been smarter? “No. Look.” She shoves the notebook closer to Nell and points at the list of names. “Scarlett didn’t come.”

  “Okay, Francie, relax. I’m getting the name wrong,” Nell says, her tone defensive. “I told you guys, I’m terrible with names. Who’s the woman who came but left pretty quickly? The Pilates one. We went to get a drink together.”

  “Gemma? Wearing a blue tank top and jeans?”

  “Yes, Gemma. It was her.”

  “And then what?” Francie asks.

  “And that’s it. I went to the loo. I came back to the table, we all chatted for a while, and then Alma called.”

  “You’re sure?” Francie asks. “You didn’t ask anyone to hold your purse? You didn’t lose sight of it at any point?”

  “Francie,
take a breath,” Colette says. “You’re going to pass out.”

  Francie sits back on her heels. “I just can’t make sense of any of this. Where was Winnie when Alma called? And when did she get back to her house that night? And did you see what Patricia Faith said on The Faith Hour this morning?”

  Nell lets out an irritated sigh. “Patricia Faith. I despise that woman. How does being a former Miss California qualify you for a one-hour talk show on cable television?”

  “Do you know what her beauty contest talent was?” Colette asks. “Social commentary.”

  “Please,” Nell says. “What? Did she stand on a stage in a bikini, arguing in favor of arming schoolchildren?”

  “You can see the foam brewing at her mouth,” Colette says. “A rich baby stolen away. The mother, a beautiful, once-famous actress, and now a single mom. She’s going to make her network a fortune.”

  “I know, but guys,” Francie says, “did you see what she said this morning? They know about us. That we got in.”

  Nell gasps and grabs Francie’s wrist. “What do you mean?” The color has drained from her face. “She talked about us? By name?”

  “Not by name,” Francie says, standing and picking up Will, who’s begun to fuss. “She called us ‘friends of Gwendolyn Ross.’ Said we were allowed in to an active crime scene.”

  Francie couldn’t deny the odd jolt she felt hearing the words, knowing it was her—Francie Givens from Estherville, Tennessee, population 6,360—being referred to by Patricia Faith (however namelessly) as a friend of Winnie Ross. She toes an article from the stack, sliding it closer to Nell. “It got picked up by the press.”