Mother Dear

by Nova Lee Maier

  Hurrying through the corridors, she turned right and used her pass to open the doors. She didn’t waste any time checking whether Marjan was in her office—probably not, on a Saturday. Instead, she went straight to the waste room and stepped inside.

  Then froze to the spot.

  4

  It wasn’t such a crazy idea that his mother had inadvertently suggested to him—climbing out of the window. He had briefly considered the option but decided to go downstairs after all. There was no point in running away. He had to go through with this.

  “What did you and Brian do on Friday?”

  The interview had already started before he could even sit down. Two policemen in their thirties. One had a shiny scalp; the other had closely cropped, black, curly hair that was parted on the side and fixed in place with glistening gel. John de Haas, a friend of Loukili’s.

  Ralf looked over his shoulder and pointed outside. “We were just chilling in the shed.”

  “Define ‘chilling,’” said the bald one.

  “Hanging out. Talking. Watching videos online.”

  De Haas leaned forward. “Hmm . . . Drinking, perhaps? A few lines of coke?”

  Ralf looked at him angrily. Said nothing.

  “Was it just the two of you?”

  He nodded.

  “And then?”

  “He left,” said Ralf.

  “On his own?”

  “Yeah. I was grounded.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  A little voice whispered to him that this would be the perfect time to introduce Mikey into the conversation. With a few well-chosen phrases, he could set the police on the trail of Brian’s dealer: He owed Mikey some money and was supposed to pay him that afternoon . . . But he held his tongue. If Mikey found out who had ratted on him, there’d be hell to pay.

  Snitches get stitches.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “What time was that?” asked the other one.

  “Around one o’clock, I think.”

  De Haas wrote something down on a small notepad. “Did you notice anything unusual about Brian?” he asked, without looking up from his paper. “Was he preoccupied, or did he have any plans?”

  “No, not that I know of.”

  “Think carefully.”

  Ralf looked from one to the other. “I’m telling you I really don’t know. We didn’t see each other that often.”

  De Haas leaned forward. “Brian’s mother told us you’re his best friend.”

  “Brian didn’t have many friends.”

  The officer cocked his head. “Didn’t have?”

  Ralf’s hands began to shake. He folded his arms. “Didn’t, doesn’t. What difference does it make?”

  “I find it very interesting that you’re talking about your missing best friend in the past tense,” said De Haas.

  His colleague joined in. “Aren’t you worried about him?”

  Ralf looked at his mother. She was standing in the doorway and looked pale.

  “Not really,” he said.

  “And yet you and his girlfriend went over to his mother’s house to make inquiries. Because you aren’t worried.”

  Ralf scratched his neck. “That was her idea. Naomi’s. I went with her as a favor.”

  “So, you aren’t concerned, then?”

  He shook his head. “This wouldn’t be the first time Brian has dropped off the radar for a while.”

  De Haas looked him straight in the eye. “One of my colleagues told me you came to the station to file a report. It seems it was a sensitive matter—something that couldn’t be reported online.”

  This was going wrong. Ralf felt a tiny muscle near his eye start to twitch.

  “That wouldn’t have had anything to do with Brian, would it?”

  “No,” he said as casually as he could. “As it happens, it didn’t.”

  The officer turned toward Ralf’s mother. “Could you confirm that?”

  Ralf sought his mother’s eyes, but she was looking at the floor. Picking at the hem of her T-shirt. She looked younger, standing there. Like the girl she must once have been.

  “It didn’t have anything to do with Brian,” she replied.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Ralf exhaled inaudibly.

  “Would you like to file that report now?”

  She lifted her head. “What we came to tell you about—is all settled now.”

  The officers looked at each other. The bald one stood up, followed by De Haas. “OK. We’ll be on our way now. Thanks for the coffee.”

  De Haas turned around at the door. He lowered his chin, and his eyes met Ralf’s for a few seconds. “But we’ll be keeping an eye on you, Venema.”

  “Why don’t you go and catch some real crooks?” Ralf heard his mother say. Her voice was trembling. “You’ve been bullying my son for long enough.”

  De Haas responded instantly. “You might find you have a rather rose-tinted view of your son.”

  “I think I know him better than anyone else. Good day to you both.”

  5

  Helen felt the blood drain from her face. The trolleys were piled with boxes, and bags of laundry stood next to them. There were stacks of towels inside the open cupboard.

  But no waste containers.

  Not one.

  She looked around in shock. Who was responsible for this? Was it a coincidence?

  Or did it mean something?

  Marjan?

  Was this a trap?

  She felt like she was suffocating. Opened her mouth and sucked in air. And again. It wasn’t enough. Her hands remained clamped around the handles of the bags as she greedily gasped for oxygen, her breaths coming more and more rapidly. Still it wasn’t enough. It felt like she was breathing through a straw. And then the sudden pressure on her chest as if someone or something were pushing down on it, hard. The pressure intensified, turning into pain. She inhaled desperately—panting, ragged breaths—and staggered forward, backward, as if she were blind drunk. The room revolved around her, and it seemed as if the walls and the ceiling were pulling away—or was it she that was shrinking? Cold. She was suddenly so cold. The bags slipped from her hands, and she slumped to the floor.

  6

  Ralf sat in silence in the living room. Had he really just heard that? His mother had stood up for him. She’d shown those cops the door with a sarcastic remark. More than that, she had lied to both their faces.

  During their meeting with his old principal, his mother had refused to believe that Ralf was innocent—even though he had done nothing wrong. Now it was the other way around. The policemen had been right, of course: she did have a rose-tinted view of him—for now, at least. Not in her worst nightmares would she be able to imagine that he had been Brian’s accomplice in an armed robbery. The truth would break her heart. And there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t come out, since Brian wasn’t just missing—Brian had been murdered. He wasn’t coming back. It was only a matter of time before the police opened a serious investigation into his disappearance.

  Ralf got up from his chair and stretched. If he was unlucky, he would probably get the blame for Brian’s disappearance too. He had a clear motive in the eyes of the law: Naomi. And if he explained—told the truth—then it would fall on deaf ears, just like when he used to hang out at the shopping mall. What was it his father always said? Being right and being believed are two different things.

  But what should he do, then? Come clean now about what happened? Even if he somehow avoided jail, he’d have a criminal record for robbery. No company would hire someone with a record. He would be doomed to spend the rest of his life stealing scooters, growing weed, and doing sketchy deals with people like Mikey. Or abetting guys like Brian. Because in hindsight, everybody had been right all along. Brian wasn’t his friend; he had just been using him. And now Ralf was left with his inheritance: thousands of euros of debt owed to a dangerous moron, and a good chance that the police wou
ld soon view him as the suspect in a murder case.

  He had to get out of this as quickly as possible. He had to get his life back on track. But first, he had to deal with Mikey. He was due to meet him tomorrow, and he was still twenty-five hundred euros short.

  “Are you still here?”

  He looked up. “Mom?”

  She stood silently in the doorway.

  He swallowed. “Mom, I just want to say . . . thank you for—”

  She held up her hand. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Ralf, and maybe I don’t want to know. I just hope that one day you understand the path you’re currently following leads nowhere.” In a softer voice, she added, “And I hope that day comes before it’s too late.”

  Only then did he notice she’d been crying.

  7

  “Helen?”

  She knew that voice.

  Helen opened her eyes and immediately closed them again. A bright light, directly overhead. She blinked, turned her face away. She was lying flat on her back. The floor was smooth and hard, and around her stood trolleys piled with towels and plastic bags. Close to her head lay a yellow shopping bag. She breathed in the odor of plastic trash-can liners and felt the chill emanating from the packages.

  “Helen? Are you OK?” Marjan was looking at her with concern.

  “Yeah, I am now.” She struggled from the floor and sat upright. Was this a dream? She felt so strange, so light and shivery.

  Marjan was hunkered down beside her. A necklace glittered around her neck. “I was just about to go and get help. You fainted.”

  Helen suddenly remembered what had happened and realized that she had hyperventilated. The pressure on her chest, the pain, the lack of oxygen, light-headedness—it all pointed to a panic attack. The last time she’d had one of those had been during her training, when she’d had to give a presentation in front of a packed auditorium.

  “You still look pale.”

  “I’m feeling much better.”

  She braced herself against the wall and stood up. Marjan tried to help her, but she fended her off politely. “Thank you, it’s OK.”

  Marjan’s eyes went to the shopping bags. “What on earth are you lugging around in there?” She leaned forward and peered inside. “Garbage bags?”

  “That’s my stuff, not yours,” Helen snapped. “Maybe you should stop sticking your nose into other people’s business.” She snatched the bags from where they stood by Marjan’s feet and rushed down the corridor.

  There was a clock hanging in the hallway. She had been unconscious for fifteen minutes at most, but even if she headed straight to her ward now, she would still be late. Only she wasn’t going to the ward. There was another waste room on the next floor.

  8

  It was a remarkably warm day for October. The terraces of the cafés in town were all packed. Sara and Floris were walking hand in hand ahead of Ralf and Naomi. Two people who had no idea what it was like to be short of money. They stopped in front of the windows of shops that Ralf wouldn’t dare set foot in and discussed Moncler and Stone Island jackets as if they already had one in every color hanging in their closets at home. Ralf had seen the prices: just one of those jackets cost as much as two months of minimum wage. And Floris kept bleating on about “genuine goose down” and how wonderfully light it felt. Sara told them she hated designer knockoffs. “So pathetic, you know?”

  Naomi clung to Ralf’s arm. She was remarkably quiet. Ralf didn’t know what her parents did for a living—they had never spoken about it—but she lived with her brothers and her little sister in a small row house, just like his.

  “My parents drive me totally crazy sometimes,” said Sara.

  “How come?” asked Floris.

  “They had a fight this morning. I heard them in the kitchen.”

  “What about?”

  “About tonight. My father will be working, but my mother thought they’d be going out together.”

  Ralf pricked up his ears. “Working?” he asked.

  Sara turned around. Daylight glittered from her sunglasses. “I thought you knew that already—that we own some restaurants?”

  “The Horn of Plenty,” explained Floris.

  Sara certainly knew how to present it: suddenly the restaurants belonged to the entire family. “Surely your father doesn’t have to do the washing up himself on a Saturday night?”

  She shrugged. “He just likes to be there on busy evenings. Have a chat with the guests, check that everybody is doing their jobs properly. And he likes to go to the bank with the day’s takings himself. It’s like I said yesterday—he’s married to his work.” Her eyes softened. “When we were little, we always used to go to a theme park or the beach on the weekend.”

  Floris nudged her. “Oh, come on. Like you’d still want to go to Disneyland with your parents.”

  Ralf felt his body grow tense. As casually as possible, he asked, “Does he work late on Saturdays?”

  “Yeah, super late.”

  “Wow. Until like midnight? Two in the morning?” ventured Ralf.

  “He normally gets home around one.” She frowned at Ralf for a moment, as if she had just realized that his interest in her father’s schedule was a little strange. But then she turned to Floris, who flipped open a pack of Marlboros and offered them around. Naomi declined, as did Ralf.

  “Do they fight a lot, your parents?” asked Naomi.

  “Not really.” Sara put the cigarette between her lips and held it in the flame of Floris’s lighter. “Mostly, they just don’t talk to each other. My father sleeps in the guest room a lot.”

  “So does mine. Or he stays on the boat,” said Floris.

  Ralf dug his phone out of his coat pocket. He quickly tapped out a message.

  Are you at home? I need something.

  He held the device in his hand and pretended to be interested in the shop window. Did you really just do that, Venema? Are you in your right mind?

  “Anyway,” said Sara, “that means my mother might be at home tonight.”

  Naomi’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”

  “There’s not much I can do about it, is there?”

  “It’s still only the afternoon. We might be OK.” Floris threw his head back and puffed out a succession of smoke rings. He was wearing Porsche sunglasses, Ralf noticed. Ralf had on a pair of his own, but they were Ray-Bans. And fake.

  Ralf reflected that his own parents had probably never heard of Moncler, and they thought Porsche only made cars. But they slept in the same bed under their Ikea duvet, and they never argued. And he had seen them kissing far more often than he would have liked. Suddenly, it struck him: Was that it, then? Was that how it worked? You can have a swimming pool and a Mercedes, but an awful marriage.

  Ralf’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen.

  I am now, but leaving soon. Back Sunday.

  Sara looked at her reflection in the window and freshened up her lipstick. “It’s so annoying.”

  “We can’t go to my house tonight either,” said Naomi. She sought Ralf’s eyes. “What about your place?”

  He shook his head absently and tapped out a response:

  I’m on my way. Wait for me. It’s important.

  “Should we go for a drink?” Sara put her lipstick back in her bag and pointed to a large café on the other side of the promenade.

  “Sorry, guys, I can’t,” blurted Ralf. “I have to go.”

  Naomi looked at him in surprise. “Huh? Already? Aren’t we supposed to be going shopping?”

  He pulled an apologetic face and held up his phone. “Sorry, I’ll explain tonight. I’ll come and get you at a quarter to seven.” He gave her a quick kiss and hurried away.

  Only when he had almost reached his car did he realize that he had just ditched them all in town with no means of transport. He could only hope that Floris and Sara would be obliging enough to split a taxi with Naomi.

  9

  “Are you feeling any better after this morning
?” Anouk was standing next to a sleeping patient and nimbly rolling up a length of IV tubing.

  “Yeah. It was so weird, though. Never happened to me before.”

  “Maybe you should get some tests done? People don’t just faint for no reason.”

  “I’ve been very stressed lately.” She rubbed her wrist over her nose.

  “Who hasn’t been, right?” Anouk hesitated. “Will you be joining us for lunch?”

  “Er, no, thank you. I have other plans.” That wasn’t true, but she didn’t want to run into Marjan again today. She would rather lock herself in the restroom.

  Helen took over a bed from one of her colleagues and began to check the patient’s data.

  The man had small light-blue eyes and gave her a searching look. “This is really scary for me. I’ve never been in a hospital before—not even as a visitor—and now I’m about to have an operation.”

  “Did the doctor explain what he was going to do?”

  He nodded.

  “Exploratory knee surgery is genuinely a very minor procedure. One or two quick snips and then you’ll be back up and running.”

  “I doubt I’ll be doing any running,” he remarked.

  She grinned. “In a manner of speaking, anyway. Let me just put in a drip for you.”

  As she worked, she felt her own anxiety gradually subside. It was over: the last packages had disappeared into two brand-new containers that she had found in the other waste room, one floor up from the old one.

  Marjan could say what she liked now—it was her word against Helen’s. It’s over. It’s in the past.

  All gone.

  “Goodness, don’t you look happy today?”

  “Oh really?”

  “You look like you’ve been on a wonderful date.” Saskia stopped for a moment, a clipboard in her hand. She was one of the younger surgical assistants.

  “Maybe in my dreams. I haven’t been on a real date in eighteen years.”