Story of a Sociopath

by Julia Navarro

  “She doesn’t want to get involved with anyone, and she really doesn’t want children. She says she prefers to enjoy life,” she had once said to my father.

  “She’s young now, but when she’s older she’ll miss having someone to share her life with,” my father said.

  “Well, you can share your life with someone without living under the same roof or bringing children into the world,” my mother replied.

  I don’t know why I remembered that conversation at this particular moment. Perhaps because I was trying to find a reason why my mother might go into that particular building. Perhaps they had decided to have tea together, or were visiting someone. I couldn’t think of any other reason.

  I saw someone closing the curtains, but I didn’t have time to see who it was. I was annoyed, but it wouldn’t really have been possible to see what was going on inside given that I was on the opposite sidewalk, hiding behind a car.

  My mother came out an hour later. I was surprised, because she looked hot and it was a cold day. Alta Gracia said goodbye and kissed her on both cheeks.

  I started running home. It was evening and I had been out for more than two hours.

  I got back after my mother did. She had taken the subway and the crosstown bus, so she was there before me. My father got back only ten minutes after I did.

  “How was your day?” he asked my mother.

  “Crazy. We were working flat out and Dr. Brown chose today of all days to get sick. His wife called to say he wouldn’t be coming, he has the flu. And as if that weren’t enough, two nurses on my shift took the day off. One of them because her son had broken his ankle playing basketball and she’d been called to go pick him up from school. And the other one’s father died suddenly. So I didn’t stop at all today. I’m tired. I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”

  “Aren’t you going to have dinner with me and the children?” my father asked, slightly surprised.

  “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go straight to bed. I’m exhausted.”

  My father did mind, but he didn’t say anything. María served dinner like she did every night. I was confused: I wondered why my mother hadn’t said anything about going to Alta Gracia’s, if indeed she lived in that mysterious building.

  Jaime didn’t shut up, telling my father about the baseball game he had played that afternoon. My father seemed to be listening, but I thought I could detect a shadow of worry in his eyes.

  After supper he went to his study to read, as he did every evening, and to smoke a cigar. Jaime and I went to watch television for a while in the living room while María cleaned up in the dining room, and then we went to bed.

  I didn’t sleep that night either, as I wondered whether my mother would tell my father where she had been.

  The rest of the week my mother kept up her normal routine. Even when she left with Alta Gracia she didn’t hang around and came straight home.

  I thought about going back to the building in Harlem to see if Alta Gracia really lived there. I did that one Saturday afternoon. I lied to my father, saying that I had agreed to meet up with a friend to go running.

  “That’s a good idea, it’s always better to run with someone else than to do it alone. But you should think about doing things other than running. You’re old enough to start going to the theater, to concerts, to take an interest in cultural things. Maybe you could go somewhere next week, perhaps with this friend of yours, or even with Jaime.”

  I didn’t reply. I shrugged. I didn’t want to go against my father. In fact I had no friends, nobody I could go with. But my father didn’t know that. And if I had a choice, I would never go anywhere with Jaime. I still hated my brother.

  I spent four hours watching the building where I thought Alta Gracia lived. But I didn’t see anyone going in or coming out. I was tempted to go over and ring the bell, but if Alta Gracia had opened the door then I would not have been able to justify my presence. I went home, frustrated at my failure.

  My parents had gone out to dinner and Jaime was in the country for the weekend, at the house of one of his friends from school.

  María was in her room, and when she heard me come in she came out to say that she had left me dinner in the kitchen. I didn’t reply. I went to the kitchen for the tray and then sat in the living room in front of the television, enjoying the solitude that I liked so much.

  There weren’t many occasions when I had the whole apartment to myself.

  But I could not concentrate on the movie I was watching. The mysterious building in Harlem was turning into an obsession. I had to find another excuse to go back and stake it out. It wouldn’t be easy, because my father liked to spend the weekends with us. On Saturday or Sunday mornings we would go to gallery exhibitions; my father was an expert on modern art. He had a good eye for discovering up-and-coming artists and he was extremely proud of his collection. There were thirty or so paintings distributed throughout the house, to my mother’s despair, as she could not derive the same pleasure as my father did from these canvases in which the artists had created worlds that she could not understand.

  After visiting these galleries, my father would take us out to lunch at an Italian restaurant and then we would go home. Jaime would go to his room to study, my mother would sit down to watch television, and my father would cloister himself in the study to smoke and work on his cases. I would also hide in my room and open a book just in case my father came in to ask me what I was doing, but all I did was think about how to split up my parents. There was room in my head only for planning vengeance against my mother.

  I had no excuse that Sunday to get away. My mother was in a bad mood and so was my father, although he, unlike my mother, never overtly showed his moods.

  It was not until Monday that I was able to go to Harlem again. I spent more than an hour there outside the building, expectant, but again I saw no one come in or go out.

  I must admit that Harlem made me feel a little anxious, although I heard my parents saying that the neighborhood was now much less dangerous than it had been. It would still be several years until Bill Clinton, after his presidency was over, would set up his office in the heart of the neighborhood.

  Over the next few days my mother continued with her habitual routine. She left the hospital and went straight home, and not one single day did I see her leave with Alta Gracia.

  I had to wait a whole week until I again saw them heading off to the mysterious building.

  They walked quickly, arm in arm, murmuring to each other. They looked worried, and I thought that my mother might suspect that she was being followed, as she stopped dead in her tracks and looked back. She didn’t see me because I had crouched down in time, but once again my mother revealed herself to have a well-developed intuition where I was concerned.

  They went quickly into the building and this time I saw that it was Alta Gracia who closed the curtains. I cursed her for it.

  My mother left two hours later. I was nervous, because María must have been worried that I was not yet home, and she was perfectly capable of calling my father or my mother.

  My mother came out of the building looking upset. I didn’t wait. I quickly hurried off to the entrance to the nearest subway station to try to get home before she did.

  I managed it, but barely. My mother must have caught the next train because she got home only ten minutes after I did.

  María confronted me.

  “Would you mind telling me where you have been? You’re not fooling me, or your mother, with these tales of going out running. Lord knows what you’re getting caught up in…”

  “You’re always so nice to me. You think I’m the absolute worst,” I said, angrily.

  She didn’t reply, but I was sure that inside she was in fact thinking that she didn’t know anyone worse than me.

  When my father arrived, my mother was already in the living room, watching television.

  I was surprised to see that when my father went to see her and give her a kiss, s
he reacted indifferently to him.

  “How was your day?” he asked.

  “I didn’t stop for a moment. I’m going to go to bed soon.”

  It was the second time that my mother, after one of her mysterious visits after work, had decided not to eat with us and had instead gone to bed early. My father said nothing, and left the room to go to the study and put down his briefcase.

  The next morning, over breakfast, my mother seemed once again in a bad mood, and was distracted as well. My father paid very little attention either to Jaime or me and left the table before we had finished eating, claiming he had to go speak to a client.

  That evening everything was normal once again. My father came home early and my mother seemed to have regained her good temper.

  I didn’t know what to think. I was sure that there was some secret at the place where my mother went with Alta Gracia, but I could not imagine what it might be. What was clear was that these visits affected my mother greatly.

  If not for the fact that I wanted to cause her pain and was now curious about what she was doing, I would have stopped following her. I was tired of running so much. One morning after breakfast, María even told my mother that I was looking a lot thinner.

  “Well, it’s not a bad thing for him to have lost a few pounds. Thomas is built like me, and it’s not good for a boy to have so much weight in his butt,” my mother said, looking at me, unaware of how much her comments hurt.

  “If you think that it’s okay for you to have a big butt, then you’re wrong. You look like a mushroom,” I said insolently.

  “How dare you!” My mother was shocked to hear me talk back to her.

  “You give me your opinion of my butt, and I’ll give you my opinion of yours. I’ve inherited the worst part of you even though you don’t have anything at all I would like to inherit.”

  “Don’t talk back to your mother!” María said.

  I didn’t give them a chance to say anything else, because I left the kitchen, slamming the door.

  “You go too far all the time,” Jaime said as he followed me out.

  I cuffed him so hard that tears came to his eyes. I couldn’t bear him, but I consoled myself by thinking that soon I would be rid of both him and my mother.

  I had to wait another week before my mother broke her routine again and returned to the building on 130th Street with Alta Gracia. It was the third time, and always on Thursday. Did this have anything to do with the fact that my father always came home later that night? On Thursdays my father and his partners met to talk over the week’s work, so he never got home before eight.

  This time, once again, I was unable to see what was behind the curtains.

  I decided to stop spying on my mother, and instead to concentrate on the building. But I introduced a new factor: instead of running from one side of the city to the other, I got myself a bicycle. My father thought that it was a good idea for me to add cycling to my new list of sports, but my mother and María looked at me suspiciously.

  Finally I managed to get somewhere: I saw Alta Gracia coming in and out of the building on three or four occasions. So either she lived there, which was the obvious conclusion, or else she was going there to see someone.

  I kept asking myself why my mother always went happily into the building but came out in a bad mood, her face drawn.

  On one of these Thursdays, my father came home in a good mood. He told us he had won a delicate case that he had spent months working on. “It’s a great victory for the firm to win this case,” he said, and did not give my mother the option of going to bed early, as she now did almost every Thursday. She barely spoke during the meal and seemed listless and upset as she poked at her plate of fish.

  Jaime asked my father to tell us all the details of the case and why it was important, and he complied, ignoring my mother’s pale face and her evident lack of desire to hear about it.

  That night I made a decision. I would take my camera with me in my backpack and photograph my mother’s entrances and exits. I was sure that she had told my father nothing of her visits to that mysterious building. It would be good for me to have some evidence of her secret.

  My mother began going to the building without Alta Gracia, and after I waited for her to come out one Thursday, luck was on my side. When the door opened and my mother came out, she was with a man. I started to take photograph after photograph, asking myself who this unknown person could be. My mother was gesticulating. She seemed angry, and suddenly he took her in his arms and held her for a few seconds as I took several more photographs. She cried and he wiped her tears away, which was a clear sign of their intimacy. Then they said goodbye with a kiss on the cheek.

  I pedaled home as fast as I could, anxious to get back before she did. I managed it. I was in the hall when she came in. There were no marks of tears on her face when she opened the door. She said hello to me, and seemed irritated.

  “Shouldn’t you be studying?”

  “I was just going to the kitchen to get some tea,” I said.

  “It’s no time to have tea, it’s nearly eight. Your father will be back soon.”

  I waited for my father to come home. My mother had gone to her room and he went there after saying hello to Jaime and to me. The three of us had dinner alone that evening. My mother didn’t bother to join us.

  “She’s tired,” my father said, making excuses.

  “She’s always tired on Thursdays,” I replied.

  My father looked straight at me, surprised by what he had just heard. He paused for a second, as though he were processing my comment.

  “Your mother’s job isn’t easy. There are days that are harder than others.”

  “Well, it seems that Thursdays are the worst day of the week. She hardly ever has dinner with us on Thursdays anymore,” I insisted, mercilessly, in the face of my father’s unresponsive surprise.

  We ate almost in silence, for all that Jaime tried to keep the conversation going. When we finished eating my father went to hide in his study and smoke his cigar, and, I hoped, to allow the seed of the confusion I had planted with my comments to start to sprout.

  My mother didn’t have breakfast with us either. My father excused her again.

  “She’s on the night shift, so it would be good for her to sleep a little more.”

  “Right,” I said, and gave him a significant look.

  “Poor Mama, I don’t know how she manages to work all through the night,” Jaime said, unable to read the meaning underneath my words.

  For the next few days my mother seemed upset, as if nothing and nobody surrounding her were at all important. I realized that during breakfast and lunch she made a huge effort to participate, but she didn’t care about anything Jaime or I, or even my father, said. When María asked her how to organize something around the house, she left it up to her to make the decision.

  I was impatient for Thursday to come around. I wondered whether I would see the man again. I wanted to take a photo of them together, to have a good collection before sending the pictures to my father.

  That is what my plan was, to send my father the photos of my mother going into the building, alone and with Alta Gracia, and, most importantly, showing her in the arms of the unknown man. I would send them with a brief note: “Your wife is cheating on you.” Yes, that would be enough for my father to talk to her, and she would have no other option than to admit she had a lover. Because at the time I was firmly convinced that my mother went to the building in Harlem to meet this man, and that Alta Gracia facilitated their secret meetings.

  I wanted to take a good photograph of the unknown man. The photos I had taken at a distance with my camera from my hiding place were not able to show his features in detail.

  The next Thursday my mother went to the building with Alta Gracia and came out alone a couple of hours later, and no one saw her to the door. Now it was I who could not control my bad temper, and I joined my mother in refusing to eat dinner with my father and brother that
evening.

  María, without wanting to, helped me instill greater suspicion in my father’s mind, because when I said that I wasn’t hungry, that something I had for lunch had disagreed with me and that I was going to bed, María muttered grumpily, “Just like your mother, every Thursday.”

  My father looked at her reproachfully, but María didn’t even realize that we had heard what she had said.

  Two more weeks went by before luck came my way again. My mother went to the building without Alta Gracia. She was walking fast and seemed impatient. I was waiting in my hiding spot among the trees and what happened next was what I least expected. Before my mother reached the building, a man caught up with her and called her by name. She turned around and they kissed. It was an innocent kiss, like two friends give each other when they meet. Then he took her by the arm as if they were the best of friends and went up the steps to the door. The man took some keys out of his jacket pocket and opened it.

  I had been taking photos the whole time. I rejoiced to think of the expression of surprise on my father’s face when he saw the photos. He would be bound to ask my mother for an explanation and she would find it hard to think up an excuse, because these photographs would give my father proof of her infidelity.

  I waited patiently for them to leave, but to my annoyance the man did not come out to say goodbye. Although I could have accepted my lot then, I decided to come back one last Thursday. The more photos I could send my father, the more convincing would be the evidence he could use against my mother.

  Luck was not always with me, and I had to wait almost another month before I got to see her with the man again. This time they came out of the building together and walked for a good distance, talking to each other: she was holding his arm and they seemed very involved in the conversation. I followed them for a while. My mother, who was short, stood on tiptoe to kiss him goodbye and once again he held her for a few seconds in his arms.

  What was the man like? Normal. Nothing about him stood out. He wasn’t tall or short, or fat or thin. His hair was dark brown, almost black, but he didn’t appear Hispanic. He was wearing cheap clothes, the kind that you find in any mall. Even so, he gave off a certain air of solidity, security. He didn’t look like he was just anyone.