The Barbarian Nurseries

Araceli does not speak to the policemen for several hours after she has been arrested and taken to an interrogation room at the station. She imagines going back to Mexico to work in her mother’s kitchen and wonders if she will be able to get her saved money out of the bank account Scott had set up for her.

Detective Mike Blake questions her along with Ian Goller. Blake is kind, offering Araceli food, while Goller is much more hostile towards her. He presses Araceli to tell them why she took the boys, suggesting she wanted more money, thought she was their mother, or was “just incredibly irresponsible” (269). She wonders if she can trust them and is struck by how absurd it is that she is being called irresponsible while Maureen and Scott are being thought of as “two parents who dutifully entrusted Brandon and Keenan to her, maybe even kissing them goodbye” (269). This idea is so absurd to Araceli, that she starts to laugh. The detective hears this as “definitely not a perp laugh” (269). Goller, on the other hand, sees it as an admission of guilt and “with her aggressive laughter she mocks and challenges us” (269).