Chương 8
Maya read every line.
“Does signing mean I agree David is safe?” she asked.
“It means you agree to this plan,” Priya said. “You can state concerns separately.”
Maya looked at David. “I don’t think he’ll hurt Liam.”
Priya waited.
“I think he might believe his mother again,” Maya said.
David felt the words in his chest.
“What would reduce that concern?” Priya asked.
Maya’s eyes remained on David. “I don’t know yet.”
Priya wrote something down.
David signed anyway.
That evening, Nina Patel arrived from Philadelphia carrying a backpack, a phone charger, and three containers of food that hospital staff would not allow into Maya’s room until they were labeled. Nina had been Maya’s roommate in college and one of the few people Eleanor had never managed to charm.
She hugged Maya carefully, then looked at David.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“I know.”
“That wasn’t sympathy.”
“I know.”
Nina pulled a chair beside Maya’s bed. “I can stay as long as you need.”
Maya’s face changed in a way it had not for David. Some guarded part of her loosened.
“You have work,” Maya said.
“I told them I have a family emergency.”
“We’re not family.”
Nina took off her shoes and tucked one foot beneath her. “Then I lied to my employer. Don’t make it dramatic.”
Maya laughed once, then pressed a hand to her incision.
David left them alone.
In the cafeteria, he bought coffee and forgot to drink it. He watched a maintenance worker adjust a crooked paper snowflake taped to a pillar. The man stepped back, considered it, then moved it slightly left. The useless precision of the task held David’s attention longer than it should have.
Nina found him there twenty minutes later.
“She told me more,” she said.
David stood.
“Sit down. You make everything feel like a board meeting.”
He sat.
Nina placed her phone on the table. “Maya messaged me the day you left.”
A screenshot showed Maya’s name above a line sent at 6:14 a.m.
I asked him not to go. He said his mother will help. I think I’m scared of her and I feel ridiculous saying that.
Nina had replied eight minutes later.
You are not ridiculous. Want me to come?
Maya answered:
Eleanor says visitors will overstimulate the baby. David thinks I should give her a chance.
A final message, sent the next evening, read:
She keeps saying I’m hurting Liam. Maybe she’s right.
“Why didn’t you come?” David asked.
Nina’s eyes hardened. “I called. Eleanor answered Maya’s phone and said Maya was asleep. Then Maya texted that she needed space.”
“Eleanor sent it.”
“Probably. I didn’t know that then.”
David looked at the screenshot.
“I should have come anyway,” Nina said. “I’ve been replaying that.”
“She might not have let you in.”
“I could have tried.”
They sat with the shared uselessness of their guilt.
Nina wrapped both hands around her coffee. “Maya loves you.”
David stared at the untouched cup in front of him.
“That isn’t a comforting statement,” Nina added. “It’s part of why she kept telling herself your mother couldn’t be dangerous. Because if Eleanor was dangerous, then you had left her there after she warned you.”
“I did.”
“Yes.”
David looked at Nina.
She did not soften.
“You need to understand something,” she said. “Maya may stay with you. She may forgive you eventually. That doesn’t mean you get to be the hero of what happened.”
“I know.”
“You say that a lot.”
“I’m trying not to defend myself.”
“Maybe stop trying to sound good while doing it.”
David looked down.
Nina sighed. “Sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
“I’m angry.”
“You should be.”
“I’m also tired, and your coffee is getting cold.”
David took a sip. It was already bitter.
Maya was discharged two days later. Liam had been cleared the previous afternoon, but the hospital allowed him to remain nearby while the safety plan was finalized. David changed the apartment locks, revoked Eleanor’s building access, installed no new cameras, and removed nothing from the kitchen until investigators documented it.
When they returned home, Maya stopped inside the doorway.
The suitcase remained where David had dropped it. His suit jacket was no longer beneath her head; paramedics had folded it and placed it over the handle. The folding chair stood crooked near the table. The ramen cup had been sealed in an evidence bag and removed, but a pale circle marked the stone where it had sat.
David waited behind her with Liam in the carrier.
“We can go somewhere else,” he said.
Maya touched the wall with one hand. “No.”
“Nina’s hotel has a suite.”
“I don’t want to sleep in another room I didn’t choose.”
David nodded.
The heat had been restored. The refrigerator held food purchased by Nina and inspected by Maya before it was put away. Formula cans sat on an open shelf beside clean bottles. The empty refrigerator photograph remained on David’s phone, but the white shelves were full again.
Maya opened the door and stared inside.
“What is it?” David asked.
“Nothing.”
She closed it, then opened it once more.
David understood enough not to comment.
For the first week, Nina slept in the guest room while a visiting nurse came each morning. David slept on the sofa, though Maya never explicitly asked him to. He handled night feedings with Nina in shifts. Maya woke anyway, listening for changes in Liam’s breathing.
Sometimes she entered the kitchen at three in the morning and checked the refrigerator.
David would find her standing in the light with one hand on the door.
He never asked what she was doing.
May you like
Eleanor sent letters through her attorney, then through relatives, then by certified mail. David gave each unopened envelope to his lawyer. She called from unfamiliar numbers. He saved the voicemails without listening to them in Maya’s presence.
The family group chat divided quietly. Some relatives asked what they could do. Others said Eleanor had made mistakes under stress and should not be “destroyed” over one terrible night. An uncle wrote that family matters should remain private. Claire replied that starvation was not a private disagreement, then left the chat.
