Chương 6
“Because he also gave me evidence that Aunt Miriam has been planning this for months. And because Mom asked him to watch over you.”
Maya’s face emptied.
“She what?”
“He says she did.”
“Do you believe him?”
“He knew things.”
“What things?”
“The raisin story.”
Maya frowned. “What raisin story?”
Nora had forgotten Maya was too young to remember.
“Nothing important.”
“If he knew it, it’s important.”
“It was before you.”
Maya pulled the blanket tighter. “Everything was before me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Most things.”
Nora reached toward her, but Maya shifted away.
The movement was slight. It still landed harder than Cade’s hand on the counter.
Maya looked at the guardianship papers protruding from Nora’s coat. “Let me see.”
“You don’t need to read legal filings at one in the morning.”
“I’m the person they’re filing about.”
Nora wanted to refuse. She wanted one more hour in which Maya could remain protected by ignorance.
Then she remembered placing her hand into Cade’s because he had used fear to narrow her choices.
She removed the petition and handed it over.
Maya read slowly. Her lips moved over longer words. She paused at the list of allegations, then returned to the beginning and read it again.
When she reached Owen’s name, she went still.
“You said you didn’t know what she planned to say.”
“I didn’t know until tonight.”
“He signed this.”
“I haven’t seen the original.”
“But this says he did.”
“Maya—”
“He told me he was leaving because you fought all the time.”
“We did fight.”
“He said it wasn’t about me.”
Nora said nothing.
Maya looked up. Her eyes shone, but her voice remained flat. “It was about me.”
“It was about him.”
“That’s what adults say when they want kids to feel better.”
“It is also sometimes true.”
“He didn’t want me here.”
“He wanted a version of our life that didn’t exist.”
“Because I existed.”
Nora took the petition from her before the pages tore in Maya’s tightening hands.
“Owen made a selfish choice,” she said. “You did not make it for him.”
Maya wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. “Did Mom know he was going to do this?”
“No.”
“Did the booth guy?”
“His name is Cade.”
“I don’t care.”
“He watched Owen because he thought Owen might be helping Aunt Miriam.”
“And you still didn’t call the police?”
Nora did not have an answer that would satisfy either of them.
Maya stood. The blanket fell to the floor.
“I’m packing.”
“You are not.”
“What if the judge makes me go?”
“Then we deal with that in the morning.”
“I’m not going to her house without my stuff.”
“You are not going to her house.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t.” Nora heard her own voice rise and forced it down. “But you’re not spending tonight rehearsing the worst thing that could happen.”
Maya folded her arms. “That’s what you do.”
“I’m older.”
“That isn’t a reason.”
“It’s the only reason I have right now.”
For a moment, they stared at each other across the cramped room.
Then Maya bent, picked up Lillian’s green blanket, and began folding it with sharp, angry movements.
Nora let her.
At one-thirty, Maya slept in the bedroom with a packed backpack under the bed despite Nora’s instructions.
Nora unfolded the sofa and sat on its edge with Cade’s flash drive inserted into an old laptop that took four minutes to start.
The first folder contained photographs.
Miriam outside the medical building.
Harker entering Lillian’s apartment while Nora was at work.
A black sedan outside Maya’s school.
Owen meeting Miriam.
The second folder contained scanned letters and notes.
Lillian’s handwriting leaned forward across the page, impatient even when she was dying.
Cade—
Miriam called again. She says she wants to help with Maya. She never asks how Maya is. She asks about signatures, insurance, whether Nora has “legal authority.” Nora thinks I’m being paranoid. Maybe I am. Please check Harker. Do not scare Nora unless you have to. She already carries too much and will carry more if she thinks I’m afraid.
Nora closed the file.
She opened it again.
At the bottom, her mother had written:
Also, you sit in that dark booth like a man waiting to be arrested. Try smiling once. It will alarm people less.
Nora covered her mouth.
A laugh escaped anyway, cracked in the middle by something that was not laughter.
She moved to the audio folder.
The recording lasted six minutes and eleven seconds.
For the first twelve seconds, there was only fabric scraping and Lillian’s uneven breathing.
Then Miriam’s voice.
“You need to think beyond Nora’s feelings.”
“I think about Nora every minute,” Lillian replied.
Her voice was weaker than Nora remembered. That was the cruelty of recordings. Memory repaired the dead. Technology returned them damaged.
Miriam said, “She’s twenty-eight. She works in a diner. She has no savings.”
“She has Maya.”
“That is not a qualification.”
“It matters more than my checking account.”
“You’re being sentimental.”
“I’m dying. I’m allowed.”
A chair scraped.
Miriam lowered her voice. “The hospital case has value. Harker believes it may be significant.”
Nora stopped the recording.
Her hands were cold.
She restarted it.
Lillian said, “You approached a lawyer before asking whether I wanted to sue.”
“You won’t be here to decide.”
“Maya will.”
“Maya is a child.”
“And you want to become the adult who controls what belongs to her.”
“I want to protect her.”
“No. You want to be needed by someone who cannot tell you no.”
A long silence followed.
Miriam’s next words were almost too soft to hear.
“You always thought the worst of me.”
“You worked hard for it.”
The recording ended soon after, with Lillian coughing and Miriam saying she would return when her sister was less emotional.
May you like
Nora sat in the dark living room until the laptop screen dimmed.
She had spent eleven months believing her mother’s final fear was death. It had not occurred to her that Lillian had been afraid of leaving the living behind with one another.
