Chương 4
“I’m trying to decide how much.”
“That seems reasonable.”
Maya stood across from her, arms folded.
Helen looked at the scrapbook. “You took it.”
“She hadn’t opened it.”
“Will you give it back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
Maya’s eyebrows lifted.
“You should stop making decisions tonight,” Helen said. “You’re good at making other people comfortable when you’re hurt. It creates bad paperwork.”
Despite herself, Maya smiled.
Helen opened the soup and pushed it across the table.
Maya sat.
For several minutes they ate without speaking. The soup was too salty. Helen crumbled half a roll into hers the way she always did, then complained that the roll had become soggy as though someone else were responsible.
Maya’s phone lit up on the counter.
Victoria had sent a photograph of the ruined cake.
Under it she wrote, I hope you’re happy.
Maya turned the phone over.
Helen saw the movement. “Don’t answer.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You’re thinking about it.”
“I’m thinking about telling her happiness has nothing to do with it.”
“That would become a three-hour conversation about your tone.”
Maya tore her roll in half.
“You know her pretty well.”
“I helped raise both of you.”
“You helped raise me. Victoria mostly raised your blood pressure.”
Helen smiled briefly, then looked down at her soup.
“Your mother asked me to look after you,” she said.
“She asked you to look after both of us.”
“Yes.”
“You turned that into me looking after Victoria.”
“Yes.”
The directness made Maya stop chewing.
Helen folded her napkin into a smaller square. “You were twenty-four when your parents died. Victoria was eighteen. You were steadier. She was frightened and angry and impossible. I kept asking you to give more because you could.”
Maya stared at the soup.
“That is what people do,” Helen continued, “when one person appears stronger. They take from the strength as though it replenishes itself.”
The refrigerator motor shut off. The apartment became very quiet.
“I liked being needed,” Maya said.
Helen did not rush to disagree.
Maya rubbed the edge of the paper soup cup with her thumb.
“After Mom died, everybody asked about Victoria. Was she eating? Was she going to class? Was she drinking? Did she need therapy? Nobody asked what I was doing because I was the one answering the questions.”
“I should have.”
“I didn’t know how to be anything else. Then she got used to it.”
“So did you.”
Maya looked at her.
Helen’s eyes were calm, not unkind.
“I’m not blaming you,” Helen said. “But habits shared by two people don’t disappear because one of them becomes cruel at a birthday party.”
Maya glanced toward the scrapbook.
The blue cover had a slight dent where she had held it too tightly.
“She destroyed the rose on purpose,” Maya said.
“I saw.”
“She knew how long it took.”
“Yes.”
“She said it looked homemade.”
“It was homemade.”
“She said it like it was dirt.”
Helen leaned back. “Why did you make the cake?”
“It was her birthday.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Maya pulled the pie container toward herself and opened it.
The apples had been cut too thick. She pressed one with the side of the plastic fork.
“Mom used to make that cake.”
“I remember.”
“Victoria asked for it every year until she turned sixteen.”
“And tonight?”
“She asked me to order something from the French bakery downtown.”
“But you made this.”
“I thought she’d remember.”
Helen exhaled slowly.
Maya set down the fork. “I know.”
“No, I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were.”
“I was going to ask whether you told her.”
Maya had not.
Victoria had texted a link to a bakery’s social media page and written, Something elegant, please. Maya had responded with a heart.
“I thought it would be a surprise,” she said.
“It was.”
Maya covered her face with both hands.
A laugh escaped her, muffled and exhausted. Helen laughed too, softly at first, then harder when Maya looked at her.
It was not funny. That was why the laughter lasted.
When it ended, Maya wiped beneath her eyes.
Helen stood and began stacking the empty containers.
“Leave them,” Maya said.
“I brought them.”
“You don’t have to clean.”
“I’m not making a moral statement. Your trash is two feet away.”
Helen threw out the containers and tied the bag.
At the door she paused.
“I won’t contact Victoria for you,” she said. “I won’t mediate unless you ask. And I won’t give her money.”
Maya looked up. “She’ll ask.”
“She already did.”
“For how much?”
“Two thousand.”
Maya laughed once. “She works fast.”
“She said it was temporary.”
“It’s always temporary.”
Helen picked up her purse. “Call the bank tomorrow. Make sure the transfer is actually canceled.”
“It is.”
“Call anyway.”
Maya nodded.
After Helen left, Maya listened to the voicemail.
Victoria’s voice began sharp.
“You had no right to do that in my house.”
There was a pause. When she continued, the anger had thinned.
“I know I shouldn’t have touched the cake. I was drinking. Everyone was being weird, and you were standing there looking at me like—”
Another pause.
“Whatever. That isn’t the point. You don’t understand how this affects me. The mortgage is due, and I have the quarterly insurance, and the electric bill was insane because the upstairs unit is inefficient. I can’t change everything in nine days because Aunt Helen wanted to make some dramatic point.”
Maya sat on the edge of her bed.
Victoria’s breathing came through the phone.
“I didn’t ask her to announce my finances. I didn’t ask you to humiliate me. Call me when you stop being emotional.”
The voicemail ended.
Maya replayed the last sentence.
Then she deleted the message.
At eight the next morning, she called the bank.
May you like
The representative confirmed that the recurring transfer had been canceled. The woman’s voice was cheerful and efficient. She asked whether Maya wanted help setting up a new savings goal.
“No,” Maya said, then changed her mind. “Actually, yes.”
