Chương 3
“Can I see her?”
“She asked for you. We’re moving her to a room.”
When David reached her, Maya was propped against white pillows beneath heated blankets. Color had not returned to her face, but her eyes were more alert. A clear bag of fluid hung beside the bed. Another line delivered antibiotics. The bloodstained cardigan had been sealed in a labeled plastic bag on a chair.
Maya looked at his empty arms.
“Where’s Liam?”
“Pediatrics. He drank almost two ounces. His temperature is coming up.”
Her eyes filled, though the tears did not fall. “Is he hurt?”
“They’re monitoring him.”
“That means yes.”
“It means they’re being careful.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” David said. “I don’t.”
The honesty seemed to frighten her more than reassurance would have.
A nurse entered to check the intravenous line. Maya watched the woman’s hands, then turned toward the wall. David sat without speaking until the nurse left.
His phone vibrated again. He silenced it.
“Is that her?” Maya asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t tell her where we are.”
“I won’t.”
“She’ll come.”
“She won’t get in.”
Maya looked at him then, and the doubt in her face was worse than anger.
“You always let her in.”
David lowered his eyes.
He wanted to say that this was different. He wanted to tell Maya he understood now. But understanding after the harm had been done felt too close to asking for credit.
“What happened while I was gone?” he asked.
Maya’s fingers tightened around the edge of the heated blanket. “I’m tired.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
The words were quiet, almost without emphasis. They reached him anyway.
He moved his chair farther from the bed, giving her space. “You’re right.”
For several minutes, the only sounds were the infusion pump and distant bursts of fireworks beyond the window. Midnight was approaching. Somewhere in the building, staff laughed briefly and then stopped.
Maya stared at the plastic bag containing her cardigan.
“Your mother said the formula was making him lazy,” she said at last. “She said if I kept giving it to him, my milk would never come in.”
David said nothing.
“The first day, she hid two cans. I found one in the pantry behind the cleaning supplies. We argued. She told me not to be hysterical in front of Liam.”
“Did she take your phone?”
“No. Not at first.” Maya rubbed her thumb along a frayed seam of the blanket. “She kept bringing it to me and saying you were too busy to talk. She’d show me your messages. You said meetings were running late.”
“I called.”
“Once.”
“I called twice.”
“The first call lasted forty seconds. You asked if I was sleeping, and she answered for me.”
David remembered Eleanor leaning over Maya’s shoulder on the screen, saying, She’s exhausted, darling. Let her rest. He had been standing in a hotel corridor with a client waiting inside the conference room. He had accepted the explanation because it relieved him of having to decide whether to leave.
“What about the second call?” he asked.
“She said you didn’t want to hear me crying.”
“I never said that.”
“I know now.”
David’s breath caught.
Maya continued looking at the blanket. “Yesterday morning, Liam cried for almost two hours. I asked her to make a bottle. She said there was no more formula. I tried to order some, but my card was declined.”
“That card has no limit issue.”
“She canceled the delivery from my phone.”
“How?”
“She knew the passcode. You gave it to her at the hospital when you asked her to answer messages.”
He had.
“I changed it later,” Maya said. “She saw me. She took the phone while I was in the bathroom and dropped it in the sink. Maybe it was an accident. She said it was.”
“Where is it?”
“Bedroom. It stopped turning on.”
“Why didn’t you use the landline?”
“We don’t have one.”
“The intercom?”
Maya closed her eyes.
David immediately regretted the question.
“I tried to carry Liam to the elevator,” she said. “I got as far as the front hall. The incision started bleeding through the dressing. Your mother took him from me and said I was endangering him. She said if the neighbors saw me like that, they’d call someone.”
“She should have called an ambulance.”
“She said I was being dramatic.”
David stood and walked to the window because his body needed motion. Below, Brooklyn streets shone with reflected emergency lights and winter rain. Across the river, the skyline flashed white and gold.
“When did she take the food?”
“This afternoon. She packed it into grocery bags. She said if I got hungry enough, my body would do what it was supposed to do.”
“All of it?”
“She left the ramen.”
“Why?”
Maya’s mouth twisted. “Because she said sodium was bad for the baby, so I probably wouldn’t eat it.”
“Where did she go?”
“To Claire’s party, I think.”
David turned.
Maya looked ashamed to have known. “She was wearing the green dress. She said normal families celebrate.”
A pulse beat in David’s jaw.
His younger sister lived six blocks away. Claire’s New Year’s Eve gathering had been planned for weeks. David and Maya had declined after the emergency delivery. Eleanor had told him she would stay with Maya through midnight because no new mother should be alone.
“Did Claire know?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did anyone come to the apartment?”
“The postpartum nurse called downstairs. Your mother told the doorman to say we weren’t receiving visitors.”
“The nurse came?”
“She was supposed to. Your mother said we canceled because Liam was sleeping.”
David pressed both palms against the windowsill.
Maya watched him. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Stand there like you’re about to fix everything.”
He faced her.
“You can’t fix eleven days because you finally got angry.”
May you like
The words were not cruel. Maya did not have the strength for cruelty. That made them harder to bear.
A knock sounded before David could answer. A social worker entered carrying a paper cup and a tablet. She introduced herself as Serena Walsh and asked whether Maya felt able to talk.
