Chương 8
Outside, rain struck the metal air-conditioning unit beneath the window in uneven bursts.
“Why?” she asked.
Helen did not answer immediately.
“Because Victoria frightened me,” she said.
Maya turned.
“Not physically. She frightened me because she was always close to failing at something, and she reacted to failure like it was an injury someone else had caused. You were easier to ask.”
“So you asked me.”
“Yes.”
“For seventy-seven thousand dollars.”
Helen flinched.
Maya hated the small satisfaction she felt.
“I didn’t know the total.”
“You never added it.”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
Helen looked at the spreadsheet.
“When your mother was alive,” she said, “she worried about Victoria constantly. Even as a child, she could turn embarrassment into rage. If she forgot homework, the teacher was unfair. If a friend stopped calling, the friend was jealous. Your mother thought patience would teach her security.”
“It taught her there was always another chance.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept doing it.”
“So did you.”
Maya looked away.
Rainwater crawled down the window in crooked lines.
Helen stood and joined her near the sink.
“I gave her the money for the down payment,” she said.
Maya turned back sharply. “What?”
“Twenty-five thousand.”
“She told me it came from her savings.”
“I know.”
“When?”
“When she bought the townhouse.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She asked me not to.”
Maya laughed in disbelief.
“She said she wanted to feel she had done something on her own.”
“So you gave her twenty-five thousand dollars and helped her pretend she earned it.”
“Yes.”
“And then I paid half the mortgage so she could continue pretending.”
“Yes.”
The rain grew harder.
Maya gripped the edge of the counter.
“What was the gift?” she asked.
Helen looked toward the table, confused.
“At the party. The small box.”
“Your mother’s bracelet.”
“Why were you giving it to her?”
“It was promised to her.”
“By Mom?”
“No.”
“Then by whom?”
“Me.”
Maya shook her head.
Helen’s voice became careful. “You received your mother’s necklace.”
“The one with the broken clasp?”
“I had it repaired.”
“Victoria got her rings.”
“She got one ring.”
“She got the pearl earrings.”
“They suited her.”
Maya turned away before Helen could see her expression.
This was not about jewelry. She knew that. The necklace lay in a drawer because wearing it made Maya feel as though she had borrowed grief for an evening.
Still, the pattern had become visible everywhere.
Victoria wanted. Someone provided. Maya understood. Helen explained.
“I didn’t give her the bracelet,” Helen said.
Maya looked over her shoulder.
“I brought it home.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want the last thing I did that evening to be rewarding her.”
“That would have been unusual.”
Helen accepted the remark.
“I am not asking you to forgive me,” she said. “I am asking what repair looks like.”
Maya returned to the table and sat.
“I don’t know.”
“Then think.”
“You make it sound like a task.”
“It is.”
“I don’t want another task.”
Helen nodded.
They listened to the rain.
After several minutes, Helen put on her glasses and looked again at the spreadsheet.
“You should ask Victoria for the insurance money,” she said.
“I did.”
“And the rest?”
Maya stared at the total.
“She can’t repay it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“What would be the point?”
“The point would be naming what happened.”
“She’ll say they were gifts.”
“Were they?”
“Some.”
“Which?”
Maya thought of every transfer made after a phone call that began with I hate asking. Every utility bill Victoria promised to take back after the next quarter. Every repair Maya paid because delay would cost more.
“I don’t know anymore.”
“Then that is part of what happened.”
On Friday at noon, the $684 had not arrived.
Maya sent a second message.
Please reimburse the insurance payment today.
Victoria replied:
I’m not discussing money over text.
Maya wrote:
Then send the money without discussing it.
Three dots appeared.
You’re acting like a debt collector.
Maya set the phone down and returned to work.
At five thirty, Denise approached her desk.
“Someone’s waiting for you downstairs.”
Maya’s stomach tightened.
“Who?”
“Your sister, I think.”
Maya stood too quickly and struck her knee against the desk.
Denise watched her.
“Do you want security?”
“No.”
“That was not a judgment. It was an option.”
Maya rubbed her knee.
“No. Thank you.”
Victoria waited in the hospital lobby near the gift shop.
She wore a fitted cream blazer and dark trousers, her hair smooth, her makeup immaculate. No one looking at her would have guessed that she had cried recently, if she had cried at all.
She held an envelope.
“You came to my work,” Maya said.
“You wouldn’t answer.”
“I answered by text.”
“You were cold.”
“I asked for reimbursement.”
Victoria glanced toward the reception desk.
“Can we go somewhere private?”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“You came here.”
A volunteer pushing a wheelchair passed between them. The elderly man in the chair wore a paper surgical mask and held a potted orchid on his lap.
Victoria lowered her voice.
“I brought the money.”
She extended the envelope.
Maya opened it.
Inside were seven hundred-dollar bills.
“Cash?”
“You wanted it today.”
“You could have transferred it.”
“You canceled everything.”
“I canceled one transfer.”
Victoria folded her arms. “Are you going to complain about how I paid you now?”
Maya removed sixteen dollars from her wallet and held it out.
“What is that?”
“Change.”
“For God’s sake, keep it.”
“I don’t want more than you owe.”
“You’ve made that clear.”
Maya kept her hand extended until Victoria took the bills.
The lobby doors opened, admitting a gust of damp air.
Victoria tucked the money into her handbag.
“Can we talk now?”
“I’m listening.”
“Not here.”
“You chose here.”
May you like
Victoria looked toward the café.
They sat at a small table near a vending machine. Around them, employees in scrubs drank coffee and families waited with the exhausted patience of people whose lives had been reduced to updates from behind closed doors.
