Page 25 of The Lion in the Library

“You were distracted today,” Mrs. Feldman observed, packing up her folder, “but your instincts were better. When you stopped monitoring yourself, the sounds came more naturally.”

I thought of the audition. The wrong room. The forgotten corrections. The director saying I want exactly what you have.

“Perhaps that’s the lesson,” I said.

She considered this with the air of someone who would need to think about it. “Perhaps,” she allowed, and took her leave.

I called my mother at half past one, after Mrs. Feldman had gone and before I needed to collect the children.

“He threatened me,” I said, without preamble. My mother had never liked Roberto. She had been polite about it for years and then, after the divorce, she had been freely and sometimes poetically not polite about it. She had opinions about Roberto that she had been storing up and was always delighted to air.

“Of course he did,” Mamá said, without particular surprise. “He’s in Los Angeles, he’s ambitious, and he’s seen you in a photograph looking beautiful and happy with a famous footballer. This is exactly the kind of thing Roberto cannot tolerate.”

“He has no case,” I said. “I have full custody. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” she agreed. “But you should call your lawyer today. Not tomorrow. Today.”

“I already did. This morning, the moment the children left.”

A satisfied pause. “Good girl.”

“Mamá, I’m twenty-eight.”

“You’re my daughter,” she said, which settled the matter. Then, more gently: “And Estrella. Don’t let him take this from you.”

“Take what?”

“Whatever it is you have with this Leo.” A pause I could hear her smiling through. “I have seen the dancing photograph. He looks at you the way your father looks at me.”

I sat down on the couch. “Mamá.”

“I know, I know. You’re careful. You’re practical. You’ve been hurt.” She sighed. “My heart, I know all of this. But there is careful and then there is using caution as an excuse to keep standing outside a warm house in the cold. You can see the fire through the window, Estrella. At some point you have to open the door.”

I pressed the heel of my hand against my sternum. Something ached there, the particular ache of wanting something and not quite letting yourself have it yet.

“He’s very honest,” I said. “It’s disarming.”

“Good men are.”

“It frightens me,” I admitted. “How much I want to believe him.”

“Of course it does,” Mamá said gently. “Wanting something real, after everything — that’s terrifying. But the alternative is worse. I’ve watched you be careful for two years, mi vida. I would like to see you be brave for a little while.”

After we said goodbye, I sat quietly on the couch for a moment. The apartment was still in the particular way it only was when the children were elsewhere — every small sound distinct, the city outside the window suddenly audible.

Then I picked up the telephone and called Leo.

He answered on the second ring. “Hola.”

I hadn’t planned what I was going to say exactly. I just knew that my mother’s voice and Roberto’s voice were both still in my head, and that Leo’s voice was the one I wanted there instead.

“Roberto called this morning,” I said. “He’s making noise. I’m not panicking — my lawyer’s already been notified — but I thought you should know. In case it affects things for you.”

A silence. Not a bad one. The kind where someone is actually thinking rather than preparing a performance.

Then, low and very controlled: “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Annoyed. But all right.”