Chapter Nine Tessa
Chapter Nine
Tessa
I wasn’t planning on taking Claire’s advice about going to the police.
It felt reactionary, dramatic. I could imagine how I’d seem to a couple of overworked officers, barreling in with my water about to break, insistent that my child who cannot speak has something vital to contribute to their investigation.
As I prepped lunch for Jasper, as I watched his tickled expression at the leftover buttered carrots and noodles, her words drummed in my head. Trust your instincts.
When Jasper was born, Gabe and I had no idea what we were doing, no family to guide us, no models from our youths on how to be responsible, loving parents.
Sure, I’d read books and blogs, suffered through well-intentioned lectures of unsolicited counsel.
At the end of the day, though, our instincts drove our choices.
When we decided to move him into his own room.
When we introduced him to his first food—bananas, despite the advice that we should start with something savory.
My instincts wake me a moment before Jasper cries.
They make my arms reach for him as he falls.
Now, they tell me that he knew the woman who drowned outside our home.
And this is when I would opt to ignore my instincts?
I texted Marisol that I’d be keeping Jasper with me this afternoon and grabbed my keys from the bowl by the door. When she texted back a thumbs-up sign, I had an inkling. I sent her a picture of Regina.
Do you know her? Is she another nanny? I wrote, hoping more than expecting Marisol to say she and the kids saw her on their afternoon trips to the park, that this could be over that quickly.
I don’t think so. I’ve never seen her before. I waited for her to ask why.
See you tomorrow, Miss Tessa, she added instead. I grabbed my keys and followed my gut out the door.
I just wish, now that I’ve followed my instincts and am at the police station, my key witness weren’t screaming, flailing as I clutch him against my side and plow toward the door.
On the short drive to Culver Boulevard, I’d loaded Jasper with enough dried fruit and puffs to last the week, but it was no match for the lull of the car.
He was asleep for all of five minutes. Now he’s furious at being woken, prepared to show me just how difficult he can be.
I haven’t been to a police station since I was a teenager, to collect my mother after one of her benders had gotten her into trouble with a guy, or a bartender, or the hood of a stranger’s car.
Back in Burlington, those stations were suburban, idyllic, clean.
Then, it was police officers who knew my name, knew I was a good kid.
This building has the ’70s brick-and-stucco exterior of a DMV, sadness emanating from it like steam off a sidewalk.
“Jasper, come on.” I struggle to keep hold of him.
An older woman is stopped on the walkway ahead, trying to get my attention.
I don’t want to hear from another stranger that these days go by too fast. That hindsight must be nice.
Anyone who gazes longingly at a mom struggling to contain her toddler is completely full of shit.
These moments can’t be over fast enough.
She asks me something about where I live, but Jasper has managed to extricate himself from my grip and is scampering toward the door. I chase after him, my uterus pounding with every step.
“Wait—” she calls, and I wave to appease her.
Jasper tugs at the door handle, trying to break in. When a police officer walks out, he darts inside. I race after him.
I let Jasper watch CoComelon until Officer Gonzales appears from the back.
His expression reveals just how enthusiastic he is to have us here.
He leads us into a sterile white room that makes me feel like a criminal.
We wait as Officer Gonzales gets me a glass of water and collects his partner.
Jasper wanders around the room, tracing the mortar between the bricks on the wall, tear streaks drying down his cheeks.
Officer Gonzales returns with a Styrofoam cup for me, some computer paper and pens for Jasper. His partner files in behind him, a pale, freckled man who barely seems old enough to grow facial hair, let alone solve crimes.
“Couldn’t find any crayons,” Gonzales says as he lays out the paper and pens for Jasper.
“Oh, these are more dangerous, so he’ll like them better,” I tease.
Gonzales stiffens, misinterpreting my joke as a reprimand. We’re starting off on the wrong foot, like last time.
“What can we do for you, Mrs. Irons?” he asks too formally.
Trust your instincts.
I scoop Jasper into my lap, and he dives for the pen.
“You said to reach out if there was anything I thought might be important.” He nods, waiting for me to continue. “I didn’t realize until we saw her picture on the news. My son knew Regina Geller.”
Officer Gonzales remains neutral, while his partner sits a little taller.
I wish he were my contact, not Gonzales.
I talk to the partner, who nods along as I detail my brief story about Café Collage, about Gigi, even though it’s Gonzales who takes notes and asks, “Gigi? Is that some sort of nickname?”
And there it is, the first kernel of doubt. I keep my gaze fixed on his partner, who appears conflicted about my story. He’s second chair. This isn’t his case. It’s not even a case.
“Look.” I take out my phone, and suddenly the pen Jasper is jabbing into the paper becomes a distant memory.
He lunges for my phone. I hold it away as I open a picture of Regina.
“I’ll give it to you in a sec, buddy. First, I want you to tell the officers what you told me.
” I hold out the picture of Regina the articles use, and ask Jasper, “Who’s this? ”
Jasper studies the photo and says nothing. His attention shifts between it and me. He’s stone faced until he notices the pens again.
“Pen,” he says.
Officer Gonzales’s eyes widen, waiting for my big reveal. His partner frowns, ashamed at getting his hopes up.
“Jasp, I need you to focus,” I say with more curtness than I intend. It shocks him, and he starts to cry. To wail. I hug my sobbing son, feeling like a terrible mother and, worse, a reactive one.
“He’s not doing it now. But earlier, and at the Café Collage, he pointed and called her Gigi,” I tell the officers, who are both staring at me, pityingly so.
I squirm, trying to get comfortable. The plastic chair hurts my tailbone, and Jasper digs his elbow into me, causing the baby to roll uncomfortably.
It’s hot in this windowless room, and there’s a stale smell that sours my stomach.
“We saw her Tuesday. Jasper knew who she was. Then she dies outside our house? That can’t be a coincidence. ”
Officer Gonzales closes his notepad. I don’t like that he’s closed his notepad.
I don’t like his tone as he asks, “Mrs. Irons, how long have you lived in Venice?” I don’t like that he keeps referring to me as Mrs. Irons.
It’s patriarchal, even though Irons wasn’t Gabe’s last name before we were married either.
After he proposed, Gabe said he didn’t want our children to bear his father’s name, a name that symbolized cruelty and violence and everything Gabe would never be as a father or husband.
I certainly didn’t want to give them my father’s last name, the name of a man I hardly knew.
We decided to start anew, not just for the children we hoped to have but for us.
I picked Irons. It was a nod to my profession without being too on the nose.
A metal that’s malleable yet strong when mixed with other components, a metal that has been worn throughout history to defend and heal.
Gabe liked how it would read on his clinic’s door.
Gabe. He’d be hurt if he knew I was at the police station, making our son my coconspirator without conferring with him first.
“We’ve lived here six years,” I tell Officer Gonzales.
“Then you know it’s a small community. Surely there are strangers you see at coffee shops and restaurants that you don’t know but recognize?”
“What are you saying?” I know exactly what he’s saying. Still, I need to hear it, the totality of his doubt.
“Regina Geller lived in the area. It’s entirely possible you saw her on Tuesday, that you’ve seen her before. Maybe she was nice to him once and he remembered.”
Eighteen-month-olds aren’t exactly known for their long-term memory.
Jasper recognizes Claire, the other mothers, because we see them regularly.
If one of them goes on vacation and we don’t see them for two weeks, they become strangers again.
He wouldn’t have recognized Regina Geller because she was nice to him once. He recognized her because he knew her.
“Mrs. Irons.” I wince each time, not so much at the name as the thought of Gabe learning about our visit to the police station. “We appreciate you coming down. I’m noting the connection to your son in her file. If we have follow-up questions, I’ll be in touch.”
I’m not ready to accept his dismissal.
“Do you know how hard it is to fall into the canals?” I explain the saltbushes, planted to keep people out, the slope of the basins, designed to prevent drowning.
He shrugs. “We’ve gone through your neighbors’ footage—thanks for sending yours in, by the way—and none of the cameras showed anything suspicious.
No perps chasing her. No one running out of the canal where we found her.
Regina didn’t even show up in any recordings.
Our informants in the encampment on Pacific saw her wandering around.
And we know she’d been drinking. Our guess is she hopped in off Pacific, walked until she eventually fell. ”
“And you think she was so drunk, she passed out in the water, no struggle at all?”
He nods regretfully, then motions to my belly. “As a mother, I’m sure this is scary. You and your family are safe. I promise you.”
Not as a human, a concerned citizen, a rational person. Motherhood is a weapon, one that can be used against you.
Gonzales stands, and his partner, that impotent, feckless shadow, rushes to hold the door open for me.
I follow them through the station, Jasper leaning against me, sucking his thumb, as perplexed by the last ten minutes as I am.
At the door, Gonzales offers me a nod of encouragement that makes me feel foolish for trusting my instincts.
“We really do appreciate you coming. I hope it makes you less worried.”
I stare at the door after it’s shut. Does he think I enjoy being worried?
That I have nothing better to do? Sure, I worry Jasper isn’t getting enough iron—though he’s an Irons—that he’s a picky eater.
I worry that he’s too sensitive. That he will hate being a brother, will resent his sister.
In motherhood, worry is a form of love. I have plenty to worry about without Regina Geller, a woman I don’t know.
I want to forget her death as much as anyone else, to cast it off as a random tragedy.
But I can’t. This involves my son. As long as I can’t explain how he knew her, why she died right outside our home, I can’t trust he’s safe.
That’s what Officer Gonzales gets wrong about me.
Gabe too. I don’t want this. As a mother, I can’t run from it.
“Excuse me?” I hear someone call. The woman we passed on our way into the station waves as she approaches us. Once she’s a few paces closer, I realize she’s the same woman I saw hurt her knee that morning.
I’ve studied Regina’s picture enough to have her image seared into my memory—all the ways she looks like me, all the ways she doesn’t.
This woman’s skin is more olive than Regina’s.
The hair that isn’t white is much darker.
She has different features, a different energy.
But right away, I know. She’s her mother.
“Are you—” She stops a few feet from us. Jasper hides behind my leg. “Here about my daughter? Did you know Regina?”
I’m unsure how to explain who I am to this grieving mother, so I tell her the truth. “I think my son may have known her.”
I wait for her to ask how. If she does, I’ll tell her about the incident at the coffee shop.
She doesn’t ask me this obvious question. Instead, she envelops me. It’s so unexpected, I don’t hug her back right away. Her body curves around my baby, radiating a protective maternal energy, a kind like I’ve never received before.
“Sorry.” She pulls away. “I don’t usually go around hugging strangers.”
“I’m Tessa.” I hold out my hand.
“Barb,” she says, taking it.
“Now we’re not strangers.”
“I guess not. And this is?” She waves at Jasper, who shuffles farther behind my leg.
“Jasper.”
“Hi, Jasper. I’m Regina’s mom.” I expect him to say Gigi, but he’s curled up, performing shyness. “It’s all right. I’m not so good with new people either.”
I’m overwhelmed by how nice this woman is being to us, when we’re intruding on her tragedy, vultures to her grief.
“Can I buy you a coffee? Or maybe a smoothie?” I add before I can consider what I’m really asking her. “There’s this place, Café Collage. It’s a few blocks from here.”
We walk toward the parking lot, and I give her directions to the Venice Beach sign across from the café. She climbs into her car, waving to us before backing out. My instincts were right. I needed to come here, but not to talk to the police. I was meant to find her, the mother.