Chương 4
Maya glanced at David.
“Would you prefer he step out?” Serena asked.
“Yes,” Maya said.
David left.
In the corridor, the muted television showed midnight. Confetti fell over Times Square. Two nurses hugged at the station, then returned to their computers. David stood beneath fluorescent light with dried blood on his cuffs while strangers kissed on a screen.
His phone filled with messages.
Eleanor: I am downstairs. Tell security to let me up.
Eleanor: This is absurd.
Eleanor: Maya has been unstable since the birth. Do not let her make accusations while medicated.
Claire: Mom says there was an ambulance. What happened?
Claire: David, answer me.
A final message came from Eleanor.
Remember who kept this family together after your father died.
David stared at the sentence until the screen dimmed.
His father had died when David was twenty-three, collapsing at his desk after weeks of chest pain he had hidden from everyone. Eleanor had taken control of the family real estate company before the funeral flowers wilted. She had paid off debts David had not known existed, kept the staff employed, and pushed him through graduate school when he wanted to quit.
She had also read his bank statements, chosen his first apartment, called his professors, corrected his girlfriends, and turned every gift into a record of obligation.
For years, David had called that strength.
Serena came out after nearly forty minutes. “Your wife asked whether you’d come back in.”
Maya appeared smaller than before, but something in her face had sharpened.
Serena sat beside the window. “I want to be direct. Based on what both of you have described and the medical condition of Maya and Liam, a report will be made. That doesn’t mean anyone has reached a final conclusion about responsibility. It means there will be an assessment.”
Maya’s face drained further. “They’ll take him.”
“Not automatically,” Serena said. “The goal is to determine whether he can be discharged safely and who can care for him. Right now, you both need medical and practical support.”
“I left them,” David said.
Serena turned toward him. “For work?”
“Yes.”
“Who did you arrange to provide care?”
“My mother.”
“Did your wife agree?”
Maya looked at him.
David felt the old reflex rise—the desire to explain that Maya had not objected exactly, that she had been overwhelmed, that Eleanor had already moved into the guest room, that the Toronto closing mattered to hundreds of employees and several million dollars. Every explanation contained a fact. Together they formed a lie.
“No,” he said. “She asked me not to leave her alone with my mother.”
Maya’s eyes shifted.
Serena waited.
“I told her it would only be three days,” David continued. “I said my mother was experienced. I said the deal couldn’t be moved.”
“Could it?”
David looked at the floor. “Probably.”
The room became very still.
Maya’s voice was flat. “You said you’d lose your job.”
“My mother said the client would walk if I wasn’t there.”
“You believed her.”
“Yes.”
“Because she signs your checks.”
“Partly.”
“And because believing her was easier.”
David looked at Maya. “Yes.”
Serena asked about relatives, friends, pediatric appointments, postpartum care, food access, and whether Eleanor had a key to the apartment. David answered. Maya corrected him when necessary. They disagreed about who had first suggested Eleanor stay. They disagreed about whether Maya had seemed afraid before the trip or merely exhausted. Neither disagreement was resolved.
By the time Serena left, it was after two in the morning.
Maya’s physician returned with imaging results. The infection appeared localized enough to treat without immediate surgery, though the incision needed cleaning and close observation. Maya would remain in the hospital. Liam would also be admitted overnight, possibly longer depending on his labs and feeding.
“You should sleep,” David told Maya.
She gave him a look that might once have contained humor. “Where?”
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
He sat again.
After a while, Maya said, “Go see him.”
David found Liam under a warming light in a small pediatric room. The night nurse was feeding him. She handed David the bottle and showed him how to support the baby’s head at a slight angle.
David had fed Liam before, but only with Maya nearby. He had treated each bottle as assistance, temporary and secondary, something to complete while she rested. Now he watched Liam swallow with desperate concentration, the muscles in his tiny jaw working beneath translucent skin.
“Slow him down,” the nurse said. “He’s hungry enough to gulp.”
David eased the bottle away. Liam made an outraged sound, stronger than before.
“Good,” the nurse said. “Let him complain.”
David almost laughed. The sound came out as a breath.
He fed his son slowly. When Liam finished, David held him against his chest and waited for a burp. The baby’s head fit beneath his chin. His hair smelled faintly of formula and hospital soap.
David’s phone vibrated again.
This time Claire was calling.
He answered in the hallway after returning Liam to the bassinet.
“What happened?” Claire demanded. Music and voices crowded the background. “Mom is losing her mind. She says security won’t let her upstairs.”
“They shouldn’t.”
“David, what is going on?”
“Did Mom bring food to your apartment tonight?”
Silence.
“Claire.”
“She brought some trays.”
“What kind of trays?”
“I don’t know. Food. Why?”
“Did she bring formula?”
Another pause.
“I saw a grocery bag,” Claire said.
“Open it.”
“What?”
“Find the bag and open it.”
The music muffled as Claire moved. Someone asked her a question. She told them to wait. Cabinet doors opened.
“There are two cans,” she said eventually. “Baby formula.”
David leaned against the corridor wall.
“Are they ours?”
“How would I know?”
“Look at the prescription label from the pharmacy.”
Paper rustled.
Claire read Liam’s name.
“Why does Mom have this?” she asked.
“She took it from my apartment.”
“No. That doesn’t make sense.”
“She left Maya without food and Liam without formula.”
May you like
“Stop.”
“They’re both in the hospital.”
