A. Homes - In A Country Of Mothers

She took the elevator back down and stopped at the mailboxes again before going out into the street, feeling tired and vaguely confused.

I t was a bright afternoon near the end of March, a day filled with the strange and fragile sense that at any moment all that was clear might be taken away and replaced with a dark and heavy rain. Jody moved down the street, aiming the video camera at whatever looked interesting — a cat crossing the road as a cab barreled down the street, the age-old game of beat the clock.

On the corner of Perry and West Fourth, near home, she saw something that caused her to instinctively duck behind the iron rail of a brownstone. Coming out the door and down the steps of Jody’s building was Claire Roth. Jody used the zoom, pulled in close, and pressed Record, locking in on Claire, trailing her from what seemed like a safe distance. She pulled open the door to Patisserie Lanciani — Jody’s cafe — slipped off her coat, and took one of the window seats. The waitress came and went. A cup of coffee arrived. Claire added sugar, no milk, and looked innocently out the window. The tape ran; Jody was getting the goods on Claire, video proof like the kind they showed on television: “Video Trial,” “True Stories,” “New York’s Weirdest.” Claire reached into her pocket and pulled out a stack of something that Jody couldn’t quite make out. Cards? The zoom was fully extended; she needed to get closer to pick up more detail. Creeping down the block until she was directly across the street, Jody situated herself so that she was shielded by a delivery van. Photographs. Claire had reached into the pocket of her coat and taken out a stack of snapshots. She’d laid them out across the cafe table and arranged them in a specific order, as if she were fitting the pieces of a puzzle together. Jody was sure the pictures were of her apartment. Claire had broken in, gone through her drawers, her closet, the boxes under her bed, taking Polaroids of everything. She’d rounded up all Jody’s secrets and stolen them. Claire would take whatever she could get from Jody; that much was suddenly and surprisingly clear.

Video still running, her eye fixed on Claire, Jody came closer to the cafe, stepping into the street, hoping for a better position. Once she was out in the street, exposed, Claire looked up, saw Jody, and registered the expression of having been caught. A nearly lethal rush of confusion and guilt coursed through Jody. She couldn’t move. A car horn blared. “Outta the street, retard!” someone yelled. Like lifting lead, Jody raised one foot, then another, and made her way to the curb, camera still fixed to her eye. Claire tapped on the glass and gestured that Jody should come in. Jody stood at the window, blank. Claire tapped on the glass again, but Jody was unable to respond. Claire went around to the door and said, “It’s getting cold out. Come on in, have a cup of cocoa or something.”

Jody sat down. The photographs were gone, as though they’d existed only in Jody’s viewfinder.

“How are you?” Claire asked. “You look a little pale.”

Had Claire slipped them into the deep pockets of her coat? Jody shifted from side to side, looking at the dark wool draped over the chair, hoping to see the white edge of a photo poking out of the pocket. Nothing. The camera was there, hanging off the side of the chair, but where were the pictures? She must have slipped them into her purse. The purse was on the table in front of Claire, screaming to be opened.

“Have you eaten anything today?” Claire said. “Maybe you should have a croissant and some cocoa.”

“Double espresso,” Jody said to the waitress.

“Have something with it,” Claire said. “Espresso isn’t very nourishing.”

Jody didn’t answer.

“So, tell me about your day. You’ve been out making movies? It occurred to me just last week that you and I should make a movie together — write a screenplay about therapy. You’d write the girl and I’d write the therapist.”

“I don’t think so,” Jody said.

“It could be so funny, and there’s so much to say.” Claire acted as if she hadn’t heard Jody’s answer. “I always wanted to be a writer.”

“Strange,” Jody said, “I would’ve thought you wanted to be a photographer.”

Claire didn’t respond except to look vaguely puzzled. “I’m not very visual,” she said. “I’m much more mental.” She tapped her temple.

Jody tipped her head in the direction of the camera dangling off the chair.

“Oh,” Claire said. “That’s Sam’s. I didn’t want to leave it with the doorman.”

The espresso arrived, and Jody poured sugar into it until it was the consistency of granular mud.

“You need to take better care of yourself. No wonder you’re not well.” Claire called the waitress over. “Could we have a croissant, please.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Do you want it or not?” the waitress asked.

“No,” Jody said.

“Then I’ll have it and maybe you’ll eat some.” The waitress went off and Claire leaned toward Jody. “That sweater’s my favorite color. Do you know what it means to me to see you wearing that color?”

Jody shrugged.

“It means we have a lot in common. Two peas in a pod. I’d like you to come over for dinner sometime this week, and on Wednesday there’s a play at Adam’s school. You’d love it.”

If Claire had been anywhere near normal, she would have explained what she’d been doing. She would have said, Oh, there you are, what a coincidence. I just stopped by your building. But there was nothing — not a word, not a gesture.

“You know,” Claire said, “I’ve been thinking that if I can talk Sam into taking charge of the boys for a weekend, we could go away together. Just the two of us. Out to the beach, or maybe up to the Berkshires. It’d be great if we could have some real time together.”

Jody finished her coffee, picked up the video camera, and turned it on Claire. “Why don’t you tell me about your day,” she said, pushing the Record button. “It’s a documentary. The scene is Claire Roth at Patisserie Lanciani. Tell me where you’ve been today. Were you seeing patients?” Jody paused. “And why do you call them patients? You’re not a doctor. What can you tell me about your background, your training? Your philosophy, your approach to therapy? Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Put down the camera,” Claire whispered. “People are watching.”

“Yes, we’re here in Patisserie Lanciani with a live audience, a roomful of real people.” Jody panned the room and then returned to Claire, closing in so that Claire’s face filled the entire frame. “They, too, crave the answers. The myth of the therapeutic process, the great wide unknown; doesn’t touch the truth, does it? No, it all goes on in here.” Jody tapped her temple just as Claire had done minutes before. “What you see, how you perceive, what drives you. Perhaps you could illuminate the process for us.”

“Stop.” Claire looked at her as if to say, How can you be so mean. Jody met her glance, evenly and head-on.

“Me? Why? You just said you wanted to make movies — well, this is how it’s done. Come on, loosen up. So, what’d you do today?”

Claire jumped up and ran for the bathroom.

Jody sat alone at the table. Perhaps she’d been wrong. It was possible that what she’d witnessed — Claire descending the steps at 63 Perry — wasn’t the clear and heartbreaking twist of betrayal she’d first thought it was. She was distorting Claire’s interest, turning it into something darker and more dangerous than it really was. Claire had probably left a package outside her door, a little present, or a sweet note on beautiful paper. Jody would find it there and, humiliated, would have to call Claire immediately to beg her forgiveness. Time and time again, Claire would say, I’ve asked you to trust me, but you won’t. And Jody would end up apologizing not only for the afternoon’s awkwardness but for a lifetime of doubt.