A Good Mother by Lara Bazelon (different ereaders txt) 📗

These are a child’s primary attachment relationships, the template for every other relationship the child will have. The absence—the willed, deliberate absence—of both mother and father has been shown to result in a lifelong distrust of other people. Abandoned children fear forming intimate relationships because they disbelieve in the willingness and ability of other people to stick around, especially when life circumstances become difficult.”

Will tries and fails to think of how any of this information plays into whether Luz was a battered woman. The Luz that Dr. Cartwright is describing just sounds angry, justifiably so, but still. Anger is not good for them. He cracks his knuckles and Abby shoots him another look.

“Mrs. Rivera Hollis describes her relationship with Maria Elena as ‘pretty good,’ but there was a fair amount of friction, particularly over Mrs. Rivera Hollis’s mediocre grades and the amount of time she spent talking to schoolmates—generally boys—on the telephone. Mrs. Rivera Hollis says that her grandmother made a number of demands, including that she do much of the cooking and cleaning around the house, and that she finally told her, ‘I am not your maid.’ She left high school at seventeen and moved to Barstow, where she worked as a waitress at a bar near the Fort Irwin military base. She lied about her age and got a fake ID.”

As if reading Will’s thoughts, Dr. Cartwright says, “I doubt it was very convincing, but it also doesn’t sound as if this particular establishment cared much. They wanted pretty girls who could sell drinks.”

Men have told me my whole life that I’m beautiful. Will is reminded of that conversation and his discomfort. Then he thinks about what Abby and Dr. Cartwright have just said. Who was he to judge her?

“That’s where Luz met Travis,” Abby says, “in 2004, after he came back from his deployment to Iraq?”

Dr. Cartwright nods. “He was her first real boyfriend. There were plenty of boys interested in her before, but those relationships never lasted long. She liked the attention, describing a particular time when she was out with a boy and pointed to a pair of turquoise-and-silver earrings that she wanted. They were expensive, but the next time she saw him, he gave them to her as a present. Mrs. Rivera Hollis describes that episode as ‘like a test, to see if he liked me as much as he said he did, and he passed the test.’ Eventually, though, she would want something the boy couldn’t give her, and she would move on.

“Mrs. Rivera Hollis told me, ‘I get bored. It’s hard to keep my attention, and anyway, I don’t trust people much. I don’t trust people at all, actually. People have let me down my whole life and it’s like, why would I want to keep setting myself up for that? At least, that was my mindset before I met Travis.’”

Will leans forward in anticipation of what must be coming next. “Were any of these boys abusive toward her? Even verbally?”

Dr. Cartwright shakes her head. “There is no history or pattern of abuse in these prior relationships, if that’s what you would call them. I’m not sure she would. They were sexual relationships, of course, but Mrs. Rivera Hollis does not equate sex with closeness.”

Will tries not to look insulted on Luz’s behalf. Of course she sought sex for closeness. The girl had been frigging abandoned as a child. In the face of this new, tragic information, he is putting aside his own doubts and the fact that there is something about Luz—the abrupt shifts to coldness and vacancy, the steadfast refusal to answer crucial questions—he finds deeply unsettling. “Okay, but there’s the jealousy, the need by some of these guys to assert control over her. A pattern, right?” He can hear the twitch in his voice, feel his irritation at their expert wandering far afield.

Dr. Cartwright gives him a thin smile, possibly the best she can do in any situation. “Mrs. Rivera Hollis has no patience for jealousy. When she started working at the bar in Barstow, some of the guys she was casually dating did get angry over the way she interacted with the male customers.” Cartwright ran her index finger down the page. “I asked her about that specifically, and she said, ‘I told them to fuck off, get over yourself. It’s my job to flirt and play nice. That’s how I get my tips.’”

“But there was abuse, with Travis, over being jealous. He was abusive toward her, there’s no doubt about that.” Will hears himself getting louder; beside him, Abby clears her throat. “He had come back from that tour in Iraq, having been in combat, was having issues with it. We have his medical records: fights on the base, excessive drinking.”

“As do I,” Dr. Cartwright intones coldly, but Will isn’t finished.

“Wouldn’t he take his—” he reaches for a therapy-sounding word “—trauma out on her?”

Dr. Cartwright looks at him like he’s a kindergartner who has interrupted story hour to make a wrong guess about the ending. “The relationship was a tumultuous one, but it was not violent in the beginning. Once he returned to Fort Irwin from his deployment, Sergeant Hollis was a regular presence at the bar and a big drinker. He would stay late and talk to her, sometimes about his problems with his girlfriend back home in Ohio.”

“Jackie Stedman,” Will says.

“Yes. A long-distance relationship that had started back when Travis and Jackie were both in high school. They were having difficulties. Ms. Stedman wanted to get married and move across the country to California. Sergeant Hollis was feeling pressured by her and starting to have doubts.”

Will shifts uncomfortably, suddenly reminded of a similar feeling of pressure from Meredith, and the seeding of his own doubts. Resolved in her favor, of course.

Dr. Cartwright was reading from her notebook again. “Mrs. Rivera Hollis said she enjoyed Sergeant Hollis’s company. She told me, ‘I was surprised when I didn’t get sick of him. Maybe it was because he