The Perfect Mother(43)
“This thing with Bodhi Mogaro is equally disturbing,” someone else says. “His wife gave an interview. They’re making it seem like they just arrived here from Yemen, but they’re US citizens. She’s from Connecticut.”
“My mom doesn’t believe a word his wife is saying.” Whoever is talking laughs. “Granted, my mom only gets her news from The Faith Hour, so I’m not sure she should be trusted.”
“I still can’t believe any of it.” A big sigh. “That this happened to one of us.”
Brittle pine needles pit Francie’s knees as she kneels on the ground, holding her breath against the stench of a nearby garbage can overflowing with paper coffee cups and plastic bags of discarded takeout, feasted on by a swarm of spinning flies. She leans closer to the baby, wishing he’d stay still, the way she imagined they would, the way babies do for that one woman, whatever her name is, who gets them to sleep inside huge flower petals, their heads covered with a cabbage leaf.
“Can you move him a little, please? He’s in a shadow.”
“I can’t get it out of my mind—the idea of getting a call, hearing my baby is gone. My husband and I were supposed to have our first date night last night, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave her with a sitter. I read somewhere that the nanny, Alma, is part of a baby-selling ring.”
Francie read the same thing yesterday, and immediately texted Nell. Alma? Part of a baby-selling ring? Is that true?
Nell had written back one word: Yes.
Francie called her right away. “Nell, this is awful. How did you—”
“It was right there on her résumé,” Nell said. “‘Nanny for three years. Mother of two. Member of a baby-selling ring.’” She heard Nell tsk on the other end of the phone. “What could I do but hire her? I had to go back to work, and do you have any idea how few nannies there are in Brooklyn these days?”
Francie is still upset that Nell could find humor in any of this. “Nothing about this is amusing, Nell.”
“I know, Francie. But the way they’re dragging Alma into this whole mess, while breathing fear into every woman with a nanny . . . It’s infuriating. She would never do anything to hurt anyone. I have to laugh about it. Otherwise I might just go and kill someone.”
“Nice job, buddy,” Francie says now, to the new little boy on the blanket in front of her. “That’s it. Just sit still like that for another minute.”
“You see Us Weekly yesterday?” Francie’s back is to them, and she can’t tell who’s speaking. Their voices are running together. “An article said Patricia Faith has offered Winnie two million dollars for a sit-down interview.”
Francie hears the chime of a new text message, and she pauses to glance at her phone, on the ground near her camera bag. It’s Lowell again.
Really sell this business idea. Try to book something right away.
“Well, I heard a company’s offered to pay her to do a workout video, for new mothers. Disgusting.” Francie’s phone beeps again but she ignores it—she can’t deal with Lowell right now.
She turns toward the group, her head aching from the sun and heat. “Who’s next?” she asks, noticing Colette is staring down at her phone, her brow furrowed. Colette meets Francie’s eyes, and her expression is shadowed with concern.
“Look at your phone,” Colette says quietly. Francie hastily drops the camera on the blanket. It’s a message from Nell.
Turn on the Patricia Faith show. Immediately.
Nell’s arms are raised over her head and her shirt is lifted, exposing the puckered skin of her stomach spilling over the wide elastic band of her maternity jeans. She has a drink in one hand, and the other holds on to Winnie’s wrist. Nell remembers the moment this photograph was taken. It was early in the night. They were complaining about the lack of paid maternity leave in the US. She’d stood up, singing the words to “Rebel Yell,” pulling Winnie to stand. They danced. People sang along. Everyone was laughing.
Who would do this? Who among them would have given this photo to Patricia Faith, whose smug face has replaced Nell on the television screen? She’s wearing a sleek, sleeveless black dress and appears to have found the time to freshen her highlights. She stares into the camera so intensely, Nell feels as if Patricia Faith can see her there, sitting alone at a table at the Simon French corporate café, her palms moist, bile inching up her throat.
“So, to recap,” she says, her chin resting on her splayed, intertwined fingers, “this morning, we were sent this disturbing photo, showing Gwendolyn Ross the night—perhaps the very moment—her baby, just seven weeks old, was taken from his crib.” The camera zooms in on the photograph, to a close-up of Winnie’s face. She’s looking directly at the camera, her eyes half closed and vacuous, a woozy expression on her face.
“Look at that. She’s drunk,” Patricia Faith says. “And I’m sorry, but I gotta ask the question. What does a photo like this mean? Does it, and should it, change the story? I know we’ve been focused on other things. The incompetent mayor and the horrendous police work. Bodhi. Questions about the nanny. But, well, I don’t know. A new mother, just a few weeks postpartum, and she leaves her baby at home to act like this? Is this the definition of modern motherhood?”