Chương 2
I had missed it because the kitchen light was dim.
The note was attached with a magnet shaped like a yellow taxi.
I pulled it free.
The handwriting belonged to my mother.
We went down to South Beach to ring in the New Year with Chloe, Mark, Ethan, and his family.
Make do with whatever is in the pantry.
There should be noodles and crackers.
Do not go crying to David and playing the victim while he is working hard for all of us.
A woman recovering from surgery should not be eating rich food anyway.
You need to get moving or you’ll never recover.
We’ll be back on the third.
Happy New Year.
I read it twice.
The second reading was worse.
“Who is Ethan?”
Maya stared at the floor.
“I think he’s somebody Chloe knows.”
“That isn’t what matters.”
“No.”
“Why did she write ‘playing the victim’?”
Maya’s jaw tightened.
“What happened before they left?”
“Nothing.”
I folded the note once.
Then I unfolded it because creasing it felt, absurdly, like damaging evidence.
“Maya.”
She looked toward Liam instead of me.
“Your mother and I argued.”
“About what?”
“Formula.”
“What about it?”
“She said it cost too much.”
My grip on the paper tightened.
“She threw it away?”
“No.”
“Then where is it?”
“She took it.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer came too fast.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know, David.”
Liam stirred against my chest.
Maya lowered her voice.
“She packed food into coolers before they left.”
“All of it?”
“Most of it.”
“You watched them?”
“I was upstairs.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because I came down.”
She rubbed her thumb against a cracked patch of skin beside her fingernail.
“Your mother told me they had paid for the groceries out of the household money, so technically they belonged to everyone.”
I looked again at the empty refrigerator.
“And you let them leave?”
The moment the words came out, I hated them.
Maya’s face changed.
Not dramatically.
That made it worse.
She simply stopped trying to defend herself.
“I had surgery eleven days ago.”
“I know.”
“I was holding Liam.”
“I know.”
“Mark carried the coolers.”
“Maya, I didn’t mean—”
“Chloe had my car keys because she said she needed to move it for alternate-side parking.”
She finally looked at me.
“I asked them not to go.”
There was no accusation in her voice.
I wished there had been.
I crouched beside her again.
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded once, which was not forgiveness.
I touched the back of my fingers to her forehead.
“You have a fever.”
“I took Tylenol.”
“When?”
She hesitated.
“Yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“There isn’t any more.”
I stood so quickly the chair behind me scraped the floor.
That sound made Liam start crying.
Maya flinched.
I forced my voice lower.
“We’re going to the hospital.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to sit in an emergency room on New Year’s Eve.”
“You’re bleeding and feverish.”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“If it’s nothing, a doctor can tell us it’s nothing.”
“David.”
“I’m not negotiating this.”
Her mouth tightened.
For a second I saw the Maya I knew from before childbirth, the woman who once argued with a tow-truck driver for twenty minutes because he had blocked our driveway while illegally towing someone else.
Then her shoulders sagged.
“I need shoes.”
I found her slippers beneath the radiator.
They were cold.
I put socks on her feet because bending made her wince.
She watched me without speaking.
I packed diapers, wipes, the remaining formula, her discharge paperwork, chargers, and a clean shirt into Liam’s diaper bag.
While searching for her insurance card, I found three unopened envelopes from the hospital shoved beneath takeout menus in a kitchen drawer.
One contained follow-up instructions stating that fever, increased bleeding, worsening abdominal pain, or redness around the incision required immediate medical evaluation.
I photographed the page.
Then I photographed the refrigerator.
The thermostat.
The ramen.
The note.
The blood on Maya’s clothes.
She noticed.
“What are you doing?”
“Documenting it.”
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow they’re going to tell me I misunderstood.”
Her expression tightened with recognition.
That frightened me more than anything else had.
I opened the banking app and removed my mother, Chloe, and Mark as authorized card users.
Then I froze the household debit card.
Almost immediately, a notification appeared.
A charge for $1,846.23 at a Miami nightclub had been declined.
I stared at the amount.
Maya let out a small, tired laugh.
It surprised me.
“What?”
She wiped at one eye.
“Nothing.”
“Maya.”
“It’s just funny.”
“What is?”
“I’ve been cutting diapers in half.”
I thought I had misheard her.
“You’ve been what?”
“Not the diapers.”
She gave another weak laugh.
“The disposable changing pads.”
Her face crumpled.
“I’ve been cutting them in half because your mother said I was wasting money.”
The laugh disappeared from both of us.
Outside, someone on the next block tested fireworks before midnight, three hard explosions followed by cheers.
I lifted Maya carefully.
She weighed less than she had before pregnancy.
At the door, she tried to pull away.
“I can walk.”
“You nearly collapsed.”
“The neighbors will see.”
“Let them.”
That was easy for me to say.
Maya had spent eleven days being taught that needing help was a performance.
I carried her anyway, but when we reached the elevator, she whispered, “Put me down.”
I did.
She leaned against me while we waited.
Mrs. Alvarez from 4B stepped out with a foil-covered tray in her hands and stopped when she saw us.
“Oh, honey.”
Maya immediately straightened.
“We’re fine.”
Mrs. Alvarez looked at the blood, then at Liam inside my coat, then at me.
“You are not fine.”
“No,” I said.
“We aren’t.”
The elevator doors opened.
Mrs. Alvarez shoved the tray into my free hand.
“Take this.”
“What is it?”
“Arroz con pollo.”
“We’re going to the hospital.”
May you like
“Then take it to the hospital.”
Under any other circumstances, I might have argued.
