The Perfect Mother: A Novel

by Nina Darnton

  “I think perhaps you have discovered that your daughter had left school, am I correct?”

  “You knew? And did you know that she had moved in with her boyfriend?”

  “Sí, senora.”

  She felt a flash of anger. “And when were you going to inform me?”

  “When I felt it was the right time,” he said calmly. “I have many things to tell you and that is perhaps not the most important.”

  “Maybe I should be the judge of that.”

  “If you were an adequate judge, you would not need me. Come, this is wasting time. I will tell you what I know.” He got up and poured himself a glass of sherry, offering her one, which she declined.

  “Do you know what the feria is?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” she said impatiently. “Some kind of traditional celebration?”

  “Yes. It is a ten-day fiesta that we celebrate every year about two weeks after Easter, our semana santa, or holy week. This is a tradition throughout Andalusia—in Granada, Córdoba, all over the south of Spain. There is a great parade of horses with caballeros—these are men in traditional costumes demonstrating their riding skills—and bullfighters on their way to the ring. The fairgrounds are covered in fabulously decorated brightly colored private tents—we call them casetas—and there are more than a thousand of them. They belong to the wealthy families of Sevilla who host the private parties and some community and religious organizations. The parties spill into the streets all night and end up in the casetas, which you can enter only by invitation. The women dress in flamenco costumes, the men wear trajes cortos, short jackets and tight pants and boots, and everyone dances sevillanas and drinks sherry or wine. This fair, this feria, has been going on for about a hundred and fifty years.”

  Jennifer interrupted. “Look, I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to be rude. I wish I were here as a tourist and could appreciate these customs and traditions. But I’m here for my daughter, and I’ve just learned some disturbing news about her. Can we please talk about that?”

  Roberto smiled. “I understand your impatience. But trust me. This concerns you. Please allow me to continue.”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “The Spanish boy who was killed—Rodrigo Pérez—is a member of a very wealthy, important old Sevilla family. He grew up in Almeria, where the father worked, but his roots are here. They put up and host a grand caseta every year. Their son was killed on the last night of the feria. He had over a thousand euros in his pocket to pay some of the staff and expenses. When his body was found in your daughter’s apartment, his pockets were empty. The police believe he was robbed.”

  Jennifer looked up quickly. “Yes, I have already been told this. But I’ve been thinking. Maybe the Algerian immigrant who helped Emma is the one who took the money; isn’t that possible? Maybe that’s why he doesn’t come forward.”

  “At this point, anything is possible. The police don’t know. The boy could have been robbed before he got to Emma’s piso. He could have lost it. What they know is that he never paid the staff or the bills and the money disappeared. It is possible Emma knows something about this.”

  “Have they asked her?”

  “Yes. She says she knows nothing.”

  Jennifer shifted in her chair. “Well, that’s that, then. She would have been so shaken by the whole experience and by the fight and the murder that she wouldn’t have noticed if the Algerian had taken the money. He might never turn up. If he had enough money to go away, maybe he went back to Algeria.”

  Roberto stared at her for what felt like a long time without speaking. “Perhaps,” he said finally.

  “I would like that glass of sherry,” Jennifer said. “I’ll go to see Emma again tomorrow so I can ask her myself. She wouldn’t lie to me.”

  Roberto seemed lost in thought. Jennifer was fidgety. She downed the last of the sherry, asked for another, and got one.

  “Emma claims she didn’t see Paco the night of the murder,” Roberto said slowly. “She says she was out in the streets with some friends and they confirm this. But we have found several other students who swear they saw her at a bar with Paco earlier that night. Why do you think she would lie about this?”

  Jennifer had been staring at the swirls in the carpet. Her mind was wandering to Lily, whose practice college boards were today. First she wondered how Lily had done on them and if, without her there, Mark had gotten her to study. And then she felt how small, how unimportant that was compared to what her eldest child was now enduring. And Eric? Was he missing her? Did he feel abandoned? Her thoughts shifted again. What if the American papers got hold of this story? How would the kids at home react? How would Mark deal with their friends? And what about her parents, heroically holding down the fort in Philadelphia? How would they feel if this terrible mess became public? And what about Princeton? Would they expel Emma?

  “Mrs. Lewis?” Roberto interrupted her thoughts. “Did you hear me?”

  She looked up sharply. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “I asked you why Emma would say she didn’t see Paco the night of the murder if she did.”

  She snapped to attention. “I don’t know. I don’t think the word of a few drunken kids on party night can be taken so seriously. But there is something I’ve been wondering. I mean, why is Paco missing? Maybe Emma contacted him somehow after the boy was killed to ask for his help. Maybe he took the Algerian somewhere to hide him. Maybe that’s why Paco isn’t here now and no one can find him.”

  Roberto considered this. “That is certainly possible,” he said. He thought for a moment, then got up and withdrew a sheet of paper with some notes he had taken from a pile on his desk, handing it to Jennifer. “We will know very soon.”

  She couldn’t read the Spanish, and she looked up, confused. “How?” she asked.

  “He will tell us. The police have located him. He will arrive in Sevilla tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Roberto explained that there would be no information to be gleaned that day. The police would book Paco and start interrogating him, but they would not share any of what he said until they were ready. Roberto assumed Paco would have a lawyer, probably one assigned by the court. José could find out who it was and perhaps they could talk to him, but not until the next day at the earliest. For the moment, there was nothing to do but wait.

  “And eat, of course,” Roberto said. “Why not join me for dinner? It will be better than pacing around your room and calling room service, no?”

  Jennifer felt grateful. “Yes, much better. Thank you. But please don’t feel obligated. I mean, if you have something else to do . . .”

  “If I had something else to do, I wouldn’t have suggested it,” he said, smiling. “I would be delighted to dine with you for the same reasons you are glad to join me: I too need distraction and would welcome not moping in my apartment and eating alone.”

  She knew it was a cue for her to ask why, but she assumed she knew: His marriage had broken up and his daughter wasn’t with him. He had mentioned all that the first time she met him, and it seemed clear he needed to talk to someone about it. She didn’t follow up with the expected question, but thought that if it came up again later, perhaps she would.

  “Besides,” he said, “we have several other issues to discuss about this case. It will be more congenial to have that conversation over dinner.”

  She nodded. It was 6:00 P.M.—still the afternoon by Spanish standards—so she returned to the Alfonso XIII by taxi, determined to get some rest before meeting him at the designated restaurant. He had suggested 10:00, but she persuaded him that 9:30 would be better—she still wasn’t used to these late Spanish hours, she said—and he had acquiesced. At the hotel, she kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed. She closed her eyes and tried to nap, but sleep wouldn’t come. She tried counting backward from one hundred—a strategy that rarely worked—and it was as unsuccessful as usual. She finally gave up and phoned Mark to tell him about Paco. She used her ce
ll phone, and although she stepped into the bathroom and turned on the faucet to avoid being overheard, she did it self-consciously and felt slightly foolish and paranoid. She reached his office, but his secretary told her he had just left for a lunch appointment, so she sent him a quick e-mail and promised to fill him in as soon as she learned anything new.

  She was about to put her phone away, but thought better of it and punched in the cell number of her closest friend, Suzie Berenstein. She was going to tell her that she’d lied in her e-mail—that everything wasn’t fine, in fact nothing was and she was worried and afraid and needed her. She was going to swear her to secrecy. She was sure Suzie would keep her confidence—she always had over the years, everything from her doubts before marrying Mark to her suspicion a few years ago that he was having an affair. That suspicion had turned out to be baseless. He was just going through a difficult time at work, he’d said, and had withdrawn from her in a palpable way, but talking it through with Suzie had helped her see that she needed to try to bridge the distance between them and restore some of their former intimacy. She’d been so tied up with the kids, so centered on them that naturally she and Mark had drifted apart a bit, Suzie had suggested. Jennifer had agreed, but she didn’t worry too much about it at the time. Their children were doing so well, and their shared pride in them would sustain their marriage too, she had believed. There’d be time to work on their relationship when there was just the two of them left, she’d decided, imagining the day when even little Eric would go off to college and her daily mothering would come to an end.

  She’d promised Mark not to talk to others about Emma’s predicament, but it was simply too hard, with him not here and Emma acting so strangely, to go through this without Suzie’s help. Besides, she thought, Suzie was Emma’s godmother. She had a right to know. The phone rang a long time, but there was no answer, so she left a message: “Suze, it’s me. I need to talk to you. I haven’t been honest. I’m in Spain with Emma, but she’s not fine and neither am I. Please call me. My cell works here.”

  Mark still hadn’t called back when it was time for her to leave to meet Roberto. She’d told him that she’d fill him in tomorrow, she knew, but she still felt he should have called. He should be calling all the time, she thought, not just for information but to share this experience with her, to console her and shore her up. After all, she was here and he was in Philadelphia. She had to live with the day-to-day developments and both her own and Emma’s worry, anger, and frustration.

  She was glad she was going out for dinner. She showered, changed into a navy blue sleeveless dress, did her makeup, and left her room, taking the elevator down to the lobby, where she asked the doorman to get her a cab. She had written the name and address of the restaurant on a piece of paper and she gave this to the driver, who nodded and stepped on the gas.

  Roberto was already there when she arrived; the hostess showed her to his table. He sprang up to hold her chair. He had already ordered a bottle of Marqués de Riscal rioja, and he filled her glass. She scanned the menu, suddenly feeling slightly ill at ease.

  She chose fish—the merluza—as did he. After the waitress took the order, Roberto leaned forward slightly.

  “Senora, I must talk to you about what may be a delicate subject. It is the media.”

  Jennifer looked puzzled.

  “You do not read Spanish, so you have not perhaps followed it, but every day there is a story about this affair.”

  He opened his briefcase and extracted several copies of the Diario. Each had front-page headlines about the death of the Spanish boy, who was the son, after all, of a prominent Seville family and therefore a major local story. On the jump page there was always the same picture of Emma, the one she’d used for her application to the Seville program, looking serious and beautiful. He read two of the articles aloud. Each included a plea for the Algerian to show himself and a promise to support his immigration appeal.

  “This was the way they covered it until now,” he said. Then he pulled out that day’s paper. There was a front-page photo of Emma dressed in a low-cut tight-fitting black minidress and stiletto heels, her weight on her left leg, with her hip jutting out over it. Her lips were parted in a provocative expression. It was clear even in black-and-white that she was heavily made up, with dark lipstick and black eyeliner.

  “Oh, my God. What is this? She looks like a . . .”

  “Like a puta. I know.”

  “A prostitute. That’s what she looks like.”

  “Yes, that’s why they printed it. The headline says, ‘Innocent American?’ The story says, ‘This is the “innocent” American who claims our Spanish honors student tried to rape her.’” He continued to read to himself and then looked up. “It says that the picture shows a side of the American—they keep referring to her as la americana—that makes her story of the Spaniard’s actions suspect.” He turned the page, leafing through the paper to see if there was anything else. “There is an interview with Rodrigo Pérez’s parents telling what a fine boy their son was and accusing Emma of seducing him, robbing, and killing him herself.”

  Roberto handed Jennifer the paper and she stared at the picture of Emma in disbelief. “I don’t understand. Where did they get this? Where did it come from?” She put the paper down and looked pleadingly at Roberto. “Look, I understand the parents of the boy. How could I not? This is a tragedy for everyone, and of course they can’t believe their son is capable of trying to rape someone. And they’ve endured a terrible, tragic loss. But their conclusion about Emma is wrong. You have to believe me.”

  Roberto didn’t respond.

  He thinks I’m pathetic, Jennifer thought. He thinks we all are.

  But Roberto was just planning his next move. Finally he looked at her. “We need to speak to Emma. She must explain this picture so we can respond to it. Clearly there is a good deal more she hasn’t told you. They have stopped access to her until they finish questioning Paco. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I will accompany you there in the morning. I’m afraid you may find press and television reporters at the police station. Remember that you will not speak to them or answer any of their questions. I will be with you and help you pass through the crowd.”

  “The crowd?”

  “Probably. You must tell your husband to come immediately.”

  “I have already told him.”

  What she had feared had happened. Now surely the story would get out beyond Spain. How long before the American media picked it up and it became a circus with them, all of them, in the center ring? “I won’t be able to bear it,” she murmured.

  “You will. You must.”

  She felt a wave of anger. “That’s very easy to say.”

  “Easy to say, yes. Easy to do, no. I know that.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to collect herself. “I’d like a drink,” she said.

  They ate dinner and finished the bottle of rioja. Jennifer, who drank rarely and was already pretty far past her limit, asked for another glass, and Roberto ordered another bottle.

  “It’s so strange,” she said. “I always thought I knew Emma so well, as if I was inside her head, anticipating her needs and desires and mostly, to be honest, trying to satisfy them, to help her along, and so proud of how she was doing. And, I’ll admit it, proud of myself too, crediting my mothering at least partly for her success. I mean, I didn’t go back to work. I stayed with my children. I didn’t let babysitters raise them. I remember when I gave birth to her and I nursed her, you know, and I wondered how I’d be able to wake up often enough to feed her. But it wasn’t a problem because my body knew when she was hungry; the milk started to seep out of my breasts before she woke up, so when she finally did awaken, a few minutes after I did, I was all ready for her. It kind of stayed like that.”

  Roberto nodded. “I understand. I felt a bond like that with my daughter. . . . Without the nursing,” he added with a smile. “But that was before.”

  “Before? You don’t anymore?�
�

  “Of course I do. But I haven’t seen her in eight years. I don’t even know where she is.”

  Jennifer put her glass down and stared at him. “Oh, Roberto, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

  “Her mother kidnapped her when she was five years old—took her away, probably out of the country, and disappeared. I have looked everywhere for her, hired other private detectives, and asked the police, but no one has found her. I don’t even know if she is alive.”

  “But why? Why did she do that?”

  “Who knows? It’s strange. When something this extreme happens to you, people always ask you why, like you know the reason, like maybe you did something terrible enough to deserve it. But the truth is that my wife was very ill, had been for a long time. She is delusional and impulsive and I kept hoping the doctors and drugs and treatment would help her. But none of it did and she ran away. I make my living partly by tracking missing people, but she has simply disappeared.” He took another swallow and put his glass down heavily. “So maybe it was my fault. I should have stopped her before. I should have taken Christina away from her before she could take her away from me.”

  Jennifer didn’t know what to say. Her lips felt heavy from the wine and she had trouble forming words, but she wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault. That we don’t always see things that are right in front of us. That we don’t know people as well as we think we do.

  He raised his hand to call the waitress over for the check. When it came, they both put their credit cards on the tray and Jennifer asked the waitress to split it. Roberto took her card and handed it back to her with a reproachful look. “It is for me to pay,” he said. “I invited you, and you are in my country. Please do not offend me.” She didn’t argue.

  “I’m sorry, senora. I am here to help you with your problem and not to tell you mine. But I wanted to show you that I too understand grief and loss and the strength needed to confront them. You must, how do you say, muster”—he clenched both fists in front of him as he said this—“yes, muster all your resources and then you will have a chance to bring your daughter home. I ask you to trust me.” He paused and waited for his words to sink in. She didn’t say anything. “Estás de acuerdo?” he continued.