Chương 3
Instead, I carried my sick wife, my newborn son, a diaper bag, and an aluminum pan of chicken and rice into the elevator.
Mrs. Alvarez pressed the lobby button for us.
Just before the doors closed, she said, “Your mother told me Maya’s sister was staying with her.”
Maya and I looked at each other.
Maya did not have a sister.
In the cab, fireworks began blooming over Manhattan while Maya shivered beside me beneath my coat.
I opened the home-security app almost without thinking.
Three cameras were connected to our account.
The front door camera.
The living room camera.
The kitchen camera.
I had installed them after packages kept disappearing from the vestibule, and we rarely checked the recordings.
The cloud archive stored thirty days.
I scrolled back to the day after I left for Germany.
Maya rested her head against the window.
“David.”
“What?”
“If you watch those, you’re going to hate them.”
I looked at my wife’s reflection in the dark glass.
“I already don’t know who they are.”
She closed her eyes.
“That’s not what I mean.”
I pressed play.
On the tiny screen, my mother walked into our kitchen carrying two grocery bags.
Chloe followed her, laughing.
Mark came last.
He set a third bag on the counter and said something the microphone barely caught.
I raised the volume.
My mother opened the refrigerator.
Then she said, perfectly clearly, “Take the expensive things first.”
My mother held up a vacuum-sealed package of smoked salmon as though she were inspecting merchandise at a store.
Chloe leaned over her shoulder and said, “Take the tenderloin too, because Ethan’s dad likes steak.”
Mark opened the refrigerator drawer, whistled, and lifted out two cartons of Liam’s formula.
“What’s this stuff cost, like forty bucks?”
“More,” my mother said.
She did not sound embarrassed.
She sounded pleased with herself for knowing.
Mark turned one carton over in his hands.
“Can we return it?”
“No receipt.”
Chloe laughed.
“Sell it online.”
The cab rolled over a pothole, and the image on my phone jerked.
I nearly dropped it.
Beside me, Maya had opened her eyes.
“Turn it off.”
I did not.
On the recording, my mother began moving food from our refrigerator into insulated shopping bags.
There was no hesitation in her movements.
She knew exactly what she wanted.
The salmon disappeared first, then the beef, berries, yogurt, packaged soups, cheeses, and the expensive prepared meals labeled with Maya’s dietary instructions.
Mark carried the bags out through the living room.
Chloe remained behind and opened one of the formula cartons.
“She has other formula, right?”
My mother shrugged.
“There’s powder in the cabinet.”
“That cheap one made the baby throw up.”
Maya made a small sound beside me.
I looked away from the screen.
“You heard that?”
She nodded.
The city moved beyond the window in fragments of light and wet pavement.
People stood outside bars wearing paper crowns and sequined jackets.
A couple kissed beneath the awning of a laundromat while their friends shouted at them.
Our cab smelled faintly of peppermint air freshener.
On my phone, Chloe said, “Mom, seriously, maybe leave the formula.”
My mother’s mouth tightened.
“David has become ridiculous about that child.”
“Because his pediatrician said—”
“Doctors say whatever makes nervous parents spend money.”
She put the carton into the bag.
Then she looked toward the living room.
“She needs to learn she cannot order everyone around just because she had a baby.”
Maya turned her face toward the window.
I paused the recording.
“What did she mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Maya.”
“Please.”
The driver glanced at us in the mirror, then quickly back at the road.
I lowered my voice.
“What happened?”
Maya drew my coat tighter around herself.
“Your mother said I was treating her like hired help.”
“What did you ask her to do?”
“Hold Liam while I showered.”
I stared at her.
“She said that was treating her like hired help?”
“It wasn’t just that.”
“What else?”
“I asked her not to have people over.”
“What people?”
“Chloe brought Ethan and his parents here.”
“When?”
“Three nights ago.”
I had never heard Ethan’s name until ten minutes earlier.
“Who is Ethan?”
“Some man Chloe knew in college.”
“And his parents?”
“I don’t know.”
“You let strangers into the apartment with Liam?”
Her head snapped toward me.
“I didn’t let anyone do anything.”
Again, the words were mine before judgment caught up with them.
Maya’s lips pressed together.
I hated how quickly fear had turned me into someone looking for the nearest person to blame.
“I’m sorry.”
She said nothing.
“I keep saying things wrong.”
“Yes.”
The answer landed harder because she did not soften it.
I slipped my phone into my pocket.
For the rest of the ride, we listened to Liam breathe.
At the hospital entrance, an orderly found a wheelchair before I could ask.
Maya protested until the orderly said, “Ma’am, I have sixteen hours left in my shift and absolutely no interest in arguing with you.”
For the first time that night, she smiled.
It lasted two seconds.
Then she sat down.
The emergency department was crowded with people wearing party clothes under winter coats.
A college-aged man held a towel against his forehead while his friend explained loudly that the champagne bottle had “basically exploded by itself.”
An elderly woman slept beneath a crocheted purple blanket.
A little girl in sparkly shoes watched cartoons without sound.
At triage, the nurse took Maya’s temperature twice.
“One hundred two point four.”
Maya looked surprised.
The nurse did not.
“When did you deliver?”
“Eleven days ago.”
“Cesarean?”
“Yes.”
“Any increased pain?”
Maya glanced at me.
“Yes.”
“Bleeding?”
“Yes.”
“Drainage from the incision?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Chills?”
“Yes.”
The nurse stopped typing.
“Why did you wait?”
Maya’s shoulders lifted slightly.
“I thought recovery hurt.”
The nurse’s expression changed, not into pity but into attention.
“Some of it does.”
May you like
She put a hospital bracelet around Maya’s wrist.
“But fever after surgery is not something we ignore.”
