A Mother's Story
An excerpt from The Deepest Lake, Chapter 5
My novel, The Deepest Lake (Soho Crime, May 2024), was published on Tuesday—oddly enough, five days before Mother’s Day, which is right around the corner. I started writing the novel thinking it was about vulnerable writers and their stories. And it is. But it’s also very much about mothers and daughters.
Thank you so much to Caitlin for interviewing me next week, and our Present Tense community—readers! writers!—for your wonderful messages on social media and via email.
From Chapter 5, here’s a brief excerpt from the perspective of Rose, the mother of Jules, who was last seen swimming in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, her disappearance assumed to be a drowning by the local authorities, who have stopped searching.
Rose
When you’re the parent of a missing child, sitting at home, sifting through photos, you realize how difficult it is to pick the right one. No crossed eyes or jubilant high kicks. No beer bottles, either. (No sir, she doesn’t drink too much, she doesn’t party, not any more than any other person her age.)
The clothing in the photo must be typical, and not in any way suggestive.
Is your daughter reckless?
She’s active. She’s healthy. She does sports. She travels.
The scruffy dog in the photo made Jules look like the type of person who volunteered, which she was. It made her look like a good and generous person. Which she was.
Did you get along? Any serious disagreements?
The police, consul and private investigator all asked stupid questions and they all seemed equally incurious about the answers. They didn’t want to know about Jules’s life and the normal sorts of arguments they had—that any family has. Like Jules’s admission to Rose, a week before flying to Panama, that she wanted to get her own apartment after the trip. Which made no sense, financially. Jules had three parents—two bedrooms available, in two perfectly comfortable houses. If she wanted to go to grad school, if she wanted to be a writer, as she claimed . . .
If I want to be a writer? Jules asked at that final dinner before her trip—a dinner that was supposed to be celebratory. If?
Rose thinks about all the thought they put into those flyers, the social media posts, the hiring of so-called experts. Maybe what they should have paid attention to was Jules herself—those early signals.
As a mom, you’re always either underreacting or overreacting. There seems to be no happy middle ground. Because Jules was born premature and those first months were so hard, Rose treated her like she was fragile. In some ways she seemed to be: no child got more colds and ear infections in those first five years than Jules did. The grade school years were different. Jules became ultra-sporty in defiance of her parents’ concerns and the dire warnings of one especially gloomy physician, who told them about preemies’ higher asthma and heart problem rates.
Then came college. Jules attended nearby Northwestern—a compromise. She’d had her heart set on California, but Matt’s faculty discount was too valuable to ignore. Although Jules’s childhood home was less than fifteen minutes away, the university required students to live in dorms for their first two years. Thank goodness for that, Jules told her parents. She also insisted, freshman year, on minimizing contact with both Rose and Matt. Can we please at least pretend I’ve actually “gone away” to college?
The first semester went well. The holidays were normal. But that February, Jules dropped out of contact. Rose assumed she was talking more to Matt and Ulyana. They assumed Jules was in close touch with Rose. Their daughter’s geographical proximity made them all complacent. Imagine how those other parents feel with their kid thousands of miles away!
It was a professor-friend of Matt’s who let them know Jules had stopped showing up for class. Not an R.A., not a roommate, not some campus counselor who recognized that their daughter was seriously depressed and a good candidate for medication—like her mother and grandmother before her. They’d almost missed it. Minutes away, their daughter had nearly gone under, and they had done nothing about it.
Rose should have learned. She should have swung into action the moment she got a bad feeling on Jules’s twenty-third birthday, three months ago, when Jules didn’t check in. They’d never been out of touch on any of Jules’s earlier birthdays.
Rose had asked about setting up a video call. No answer.
2 p.m. Let’s talk sometime today. I’ve never missed seeing you on your birthday!
4 p.m. I’m sure you’re busy working but just let me know if tonight’s a possibility. I can stay up.
5:30 p.m. Even if it’s tomorrow, just ding me quick. Let me know you’re good. We can set up a time tomorrow.
Rose remembers her alternating anxiety and melancholy. Your birthday was a special day for me, too. Can you maybe give me two minutes?
But she knew that wasn’t something you should put on a child. An hour or so later, when she was curled up with Netflix and leftovers, the texts and the mild disappointment behind her, she suddenly felt the strangest sensation.
She checked the clock: 7 p.m. Perhaps Jules was having a special birthday dinner.
She felt a chill run down her spine. She heard, or thought she heard, one word: “Mama.”
That was it. Nothing more.
Finally around 7:30 p.m. the texts all streamed in at once, and Rose laughed with embarrassment and then started crying with relief.
Dawn hot and noisy, birds singing. One big fat cockroach scuttled out from under my bed to greet me. Is that lucky?
Later: Happy Birthday to me! Not an auspicious start.
Another one: Typing these not knowing when they’ll actually send since Wi-Fi is on the fritz. I’d really like to call you but I can’t.
Later: Can’t complain. Mimosas with a view.
Later: I’m sorry I’ve been so out of touch.
Later: I love you Mom.
Later: I’m sorry.
There were never any more texts.
Order a copy of The Deepest Lake from your favorite bookseller.
Join Andromeda on May 13, 2024, at 6PM CT, 7PM ET, while she talks with two other Soho heavy-hitters about their thrillers! RSVP here
I bought and read The Deepest Lake based on this excerpt and I'm so glad I did. Fantastic thriller!
That “I’m sorry” gets me every time I read this scene!!! And, even though I’d had a child by the time I read this book, it had never occurred to me how important her birthday would be to me once she’d left home and was ignoring my texts, just like I did to my poor mother. GAH this book is so good Andromeda!!!!