Chương 11
Not a question.
“Yes.”
She began crying immediately.
I hated the sound because part of me wanted it to absolve her.
It did not.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Before or after you went to Miami?”
“That’s not fair.”
I looked at the empty refrigerator.
“Fair?”
“I told her not to do it.”
“And then?”
“I thought she took them down.”
“Why?”
“Because she said she did.”
“You never checked?”
“No.”
“You came here every day.”
“I didn’t know where she put them.”
“You knew enough to call Mark.”
Silence.
“David.”
“What?”
“She wasn’t trying to watch Maya undress.”
The words made my skin crawl.
“That sentence is supposed to help?”
“No.”
Chloe started crying harder.
“I’m saying that’s not what she thought she was doing.”
“What did she think she was doing?”
“She wanted proof.”
“Of what?”
Another long silence.
“Chloe.”
“She thought Maya was going to take Liam and leave you.”
I gripped the edge of the counter.
“Why?”
“Because Maya threatened to cut Mom off.”
“That is not leaving me.”
“I know.”
“Does Mom know something I don’t?”
“No.”
“Did Maya tell you she planned to leave?”
“No.”
“Did she tell Mark?”
“No.”
“Then where did this come from?”
Chloe breathed unevenly into the phone.
“Mom found paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said she found paperwork.”
“She said she found something in your bedroom before Liam was born.”
My eyes moved toward the open filing cabinet.
“What?”
“A lawyer’s card.”
I stopped.
“What lawyer?”
“I don’t know.”
“Family law?”
“I think so.”
The apartment suddenly felt smaller.
“Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Did Mark?”
“No.”
“So Mom told you.”
“Yes.”
“And that was enough?”
“She said Maya was planning something.”
I closed my eyes.
Six months earlier, Maya had met with an employment attorney after her company tried to eliminate her role while she was pregnant.
The attorney worked at a firm with several practice areas.
Family law was printed on the same card.
I had been the one who put it in the bedroom drawer.
“Chloe.”
“What?”
“You helped torment my wife over a business card.”
“What?”
“It was an employment lawyer.”
Silence.
Then a whisper.
“Oh my God.”
“No.”
I looked toward the nursery.
“Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
“Do not act surprised like this happened to you.”
She began saying my name.
I ended the call.
Thirty seconds later, Officer Patel called.
Her voice was more serious than before.
“Mr. Mercer, one of the devices has a memory card.”
I looked at the miniature camera on the kitchen table.
“Okay.”
“The officers did not review the contents.”
“Okay.”
“We are going to need you and your wife to avoid accessing it.”
“We will.”
“There is something else.”
I waited.
“The serial number on the camera matches the purchase information you provided.”
“That proves my mother bought it?”
“It supports that the device came from that order.”
I pressed my thumb into the edge of the counter.
“What happens now?”
“We document.”
Patel paused.
“And we determine what was recorded, when it was recorded, and who had access.”
I looked through the kitchen doorway at the nursery chair facing the hidden lens.
For the first time all morning, I understood exactly what my mother had meant.
There were things in the apartment I did not understand.
She had simply assumed she would be the one who got to explain them.
I left the apartment just after noon with Maya’s documents still missing, two hidden cameras under police control, and a grocery bag full of clothes that suddenly felt like the only uncomplicated objects in my life.
Mrs. Alvarez locked the new deadbolt behind me.
“You going back to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
She held out a travel mug.
“What’s this?”
“Coffee.”
“I didn’t ask for coffee.”
“You also didn’t ask to look forty-eight.”
“I’m thirty-seven.”
“Then definitely take the coffee.”
I took it.
The coffee was terrible.
I drank all of it on the way downstairs.
Outside, Brooklyn looked offensively normal.
Parents pushed strollers past brownstones.
A man in running shorts jogged through thirty-degree air as if he had personally defeated winter.
Somebody had already swept broken New Year’s confetti into a wet pile beside the curb.
I stood there waiting for a rideshare and watched a sanitation truck crawl through the intersection.
Nothing in the world appeared aware that my family had spent the previous two weeks quietly dismantling my wife’s sense of reality.
At the hospital, Maya was sitting up when I returned.
Her color had improved.
Not much, but enough that I noticed immediately.
Liam slept against her chest.
“You changed your shirt,” she said.
“I did.”
“You look less homicidal.”
“Laundry has healing properties.”
She nodded toward the bag.
“Did you bring the green sweatpants?”
“Yes.”
“The loose ones?”
“Yes.”
“Not the ones with the tight waistband?”
I stopped.
Maya stared at me.
I looked into the bag.
“Define tight.”
She closed her eyes.
“I married an engineer.”
“I brought options.”
“You brought the wrong ones.”
“I brought three pairs.”
She opened one eye.
“That might save you.”
The ordinary irritation between us lasted less than a minute, but I held onto it.
It felt more intimate than any apology I could have made.
I helped her change after the nurse disconnected the IV long enough for her to wash.
The incision was covered again.
When Maya caught me looking at it, she pulled her shirt lower.
“Don’t.”
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
“You were making that face.”
“What face?”
“The guilty husband face.”
“I have several.”
“That one is the worst.”
I sat on the edge of the chair.
“The doctor said the infection wasn’t because of one thing.”
“I know.”
“So do I.”
She folded the hospital gown and placed it neatly on the bed even though a nurse had told her twice to leave it.
“I’m still angry with you.”
The words came without warning.
May you like
I nodded.
“I know.”
