The Perfect Mother(58)
“Okay, fine,” Nell said. “I’ll talk to Adrienne.”
Sebastian was grinning as he crossed the room, kissing her before taking the bags from her hands. “Thank you. And don’t mention the trying-to-get-pregnant thing.”
Nell hears her e-mail ding with a new message. She returns to her desk, knowing she has to get back to her work. She clicks open her e-mail, seeing six new messages from the May Mothers. The group’s activity has begun to pick up again, following a few days of dormancy after the news about Midas broke, when nobody seemed to know what to say.
Yuko had written with a question. Hi mamas. I need some help. Nicholas woke up with a rash on his back. I’m attaching a photograph. Do I need to worry?
Nell scrolls through the responses.
Looks like a heat rash to me, Gemma replied.
Avoid the doctor! Scarlett wrote. They’ll give you something harsh and toxic when all you need for this is calendula cream.
Nell deletes the messages, wondering if Winnie is still receiving the May Mothers e-mails. She pictures her in that video interview, her face gaunt, her eyes flitting around the room. She hears Ian’s words.
Who is Midas’s dad? What is she hiding? It’s time to get some answers.
Nell closes her eyes. For the tenth time since watching the flash drive interview with Winnie, and the hundredth time since the night Midas was taken, the thought occurs to her: How secure is the Village website? How difficult would it be to get inside, take a look at the questionnaire Winnie filled out when registering for May Mothers—the same questionnaire they all had to fill out? Your name. Your partner’s name. Tell us a little bit about your family.
Nell stands and closes her office door. Back at her desk, she can feel her heart beating as she opens The Village website and begins to type, hacking her way into the administration page. It takes less than five minutes. It’s something she’s been a natural at since her first computer science class—an instinct, one professor later said, or, as she likes to think of it, her superpower. In college, she was the first freshman to win a national coding competition, which helped land her the prestigious internship—chosen from more than 8,000 applicants—at the US State Department, working directly for Secretary of State Lachlan Raine.
Nell sees Francie’s profile at the top of the list and clicks it open. The photo she’d included is exactly what Nell would have expected: a selfie with Lowell and their ultrasound picture. Nell quickly reads what Francie wrote—she and Lowell met in their hometown in Tennessee, and she followed him to Knoxville, where he studied architecture while she took photography classes and worked as an assistant at a portrait studio, freelancing in her spare time, taking photos of people’s cats. “We’re somewhat new to New York and I can’t wait to meet all the other mommies!” Francie wrote.
Nell closes Francie’s profile and skims others, surprised at some of the things she’s reading; at how little she really knows these women. Yuko clerked for a state supreme court judge before having her son. Gemma is from Nell’s hometown in Rhode Island; she went to the rival high school.
The sudden ringing of her desk phone surprises her, and she closes the website. “Hi, this is Nell Mackey.” There’s heavy breathing on the other end. “Hello? Who is this?”
“Nell, it’s me.”
She pushes away from her desk. “Colette?” There’s silence, and then Nell hears Colette crying. “Colette, what is it? Are you okay?”
“I’m in the copy room at the mayor’s office,” she whispers. “I think someone’s outside.”
“What do you mean? Are you all right?”
“No.” She pauses. “I went into the police file. I saw something. It hasn’t been reported. I don’t know—”
“What, Colette? What is it?”
“They found a body.”
Francie traces her hand along the pilling fabric of the Ektorp couch, and then continues down the maze, pausing to check the price tag on a rocking chair upholstered in fake white leather. She pats Will’s bottom and checks her phone. Colette had a meeting with the mayor this afternoon, and she’d agreed to look inside Midas’s file, to see if there’s any information about Archie Andersen. Francie is hopeful that after her visit to the police station yesterday, Mark Hoyt has realized they’ve overlooked something crucial. They should have located Andersen’s whereabouts and brought him in for questioning by now.
Francie wanders toward the bedroom furniture. This is her fifth trip to IKEA in two weeks. Lowell has finally installed the window AC unit in their living room—a secondhand one she bought off the Village classifieds—but it’s a piece of junk, blowing out putrid, lukewarm air. She’s desperate for some relief from the worsening heat, but she can’t stand to turn it on—who knows what toxic fumes it might emit? She’s been trying to make the best of it, seeking refuge at the library, music classes, and here at IKEA, which Will seems to like. Perhaps it’s the shock of fluorescent lighting, or the cavernous feel, as if they’d entered a vast, well-lit womb, but he calms down as soon as they enter, affording her at least forty minutes of relative quiet, allowing her thoughts to calm, a crack of light to open in her brain.
Will begins to fuss in the pillow section, and she picks up the pace, heading to the café. The air is steeped in the stench of meatballs, and she angles a chair toward the window, reaching in her bag for the bottle of water and a packet of formula. She pours the powder into the bottle, and as she shakes it, she notices a young mother sitting beside a stroller, forking a glob of pink salmon into her mouth and staring at the packet of Enfamil on the table in front of Francie.