A Good Mother

of these fights were resolved through sex, which often occurred immediately afterward. Mrs. Rivera Hollis describes the sex as rough and at times violent but is adamant it was not rape.”
Will feels his face reddening again both in embarrassment and anger. God, this woman was so obtuse. “Of course Luz doesn’t call it rape. She can’t even admit it to herself because what he did to her was so degrading...” He trails off as both Dr. Cartwright and Abby fix him with hard stares. A silence falls.
“It may be,” Dr. Cartwright says finally, “that your views about sexual relationships between married couples hew to a more traditional view. But let me assure you, there are many, many people who engage in this kind of sexual activity because they find it genuinely pleasurable.”
Will opens his mouth and shuts it again.
Abby says, “It seems like they were at a low point when he went back to the US for his father’s funeral and had the affair with Jackie.”
Dr. Cartwright nods. “That was in early October of 2005. There was serious contemplation of divorce on both sides during that time.”
“Which changed in the beginning of December when Luz told Travis she was pregnant with Cristina, right?”
Dr. Cartwright nods approvingly at Abby, and Will has to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. “That’s right. And in the meantime, and we are talking about a period of weeks here, the level of violence when they fought remained virtually the same. Mrs. Rivera Hollis was always clear with me that she believed the situation could be brought quickly under control. She wasn’t afraid to confront her husband when he did something to make her angry, like criticize one of her outfits as too suggestive or when he didn’t pick up after himself. She didn’t hesitate to express anger toward him. Again, this is atypical. Battered women walk on eggshells, blaming themselves for the tiniest mistake, so inhibited they no longer are aware they have feelings to express, other than shame and fear.”
“Was he abusive during the pregnancy?” Will asks.
“She says no. It was not an easy pregnancy, extreme morning sickness in the first trimester. At first, she says, he was excited, very supportive, and their relationship improved, but after a couple of weeks he was often distracted, would drift off in the middle of a conversation. Around Christmas, he started having nightmares and yelling in his sleep. It got bad enough that she asked him to sleep on the living room couch.”
“When he got the news that Jackie was also pregnant,” Abby says.
Dr. Cartwright nods, goes back to her notes. “Which Ms. Stedman told her by email the night of the murder.”
“Which the prosecution is going to argue is her motive for killing him. Not fear, revenge.” Abby rubs her temples. “There’s a four-hour window between Jackie’s email and Travis coming home drunk from the party. Four hours of Luz stewing in the news that her husband not only had an affair with his ex-girlfriend, but fathered a child with her, and at least for a while, was even giving her the idea that he would—”
“Leave Luz for a new family,” Will interrupts, thinking aloud. “Just like her dad.”
“As you might expect,” Dr. Cartwright says, “I asked Mrs. Rivera Hollis a number of questions about how she felt when she found out. And about the way she found out, which must have been rather shocking and humiliating. And, yes, infuriating. She said, ‘I was angry at myself more than anything. I made a bad choice. I thought he was a strong person, but he was a weak person.’”
“Did she think Travis was going to leave her for Jackie?” Will asks.
“Interestingly, no. She did not seem worried about that possibility at all. I think she might actually have been alright if Travis had come clean and taken responsibility even if that meant making child support payments. What angered Mrs. Rivera Hollis was the continuing contact, her husband’s inability to end the affair. She told me, ‘It showed me that me and Cristina weren’t enough for him. And that, you know, that was really disappointing.’”
But Abby is still fixed on the point that Will had stopped her from making. “Four hours is an eternity. Two hundred and forty minutes to go from boiling to ice-cold. To think. To plan.” She looks pointedly at Dr. Cartwright. “That email plus four hours is why she’s getting convicted of first-degree murder unless we can offer up a more compelling story.”
Dr. Cartwright’s expression—really a study in non-expression—remains unchanged. They are all quiet for a moment, Dr. Cartwright continuing to look at Will and Abby with her sharp, unblinking owl’s eyes. She is waiting, accustomed, no doubt, to long silences. Will fidgets, picking lint off the sleeve of his suit jacket.
Beside him, Abby takes a deep breath. “She’s not a battered woman. That’s what you’ve been saying ever since we sat down. We can’t make that argument.”
Will looks at Abby, annoyed. “Hold on—”
But Dr. Cartwright interrupts him, “Based on my clinical observations, she’s not. And there is no data to support a diagnosis of battered woman’s syndrome. Her levels were not elevated on the MMPI-2, or the MCMI-III, and her Rorschach is outside even the margins. She scores at the bottom range on the Spousal Assault Violent Acts Scale. If called to testify, I would say that her state of mind at the time of the offense was not impacted by that kind of trauma.”
Dr. Cartwright pauses. “And there’s something else. The tests I administered have controls in place to assess malingering—that is, making up, masking, or exaggerating symptoms.”
“Masking.” Will jumps on the word like a life raft. “Right. She could be in complete denial.” He is beyond caring what Abby or Dr. Cartwright thinks, about his outdated ideas about sex, about his white male privilege. He drives on. “I’m sure that’s common.”
“She is in denial,” Dr. Cartwright agrees. “But not about the abuse. The tests show malingering in only one respect—the