Chương 7
“They are not unexpected. I just told you.”
“The answer remains no.”
My mother had packed a small gift for Eleanor: a jar of marionberry jam from a farm near their town. She had worried it was too ordinary, then wrapped it in tissue paper anyway.
I imagined them standing at the gate with their suitcase because their hotel checkout was at noon. My father trying to explain himself to a security guard in the same careful voice he used with people he believed were more important than him.
“Call the gate,” I said. “Tell them to let my parents in.”
Eleanor turned away.
I moved around the coffee table.
She stepped into my path.
“Move.”
“You will stay here until we have an agreement.”
“I am not staying anywhere.”
I tried to pass on her left.
Her hand closed around my upper arm.
The grip was stronger than I expected.
“Let go.”
“Stop behaving like a hysterical girl.”
I pulled back.
She shoved me.
It was not a theatrical push. No windmilling arms, no long fall across the room. Her palm struck below my shoulder and drove me sideways into the wall beside the console table.
My hip hit first.
Then my back.
Both hands flew to my stomach.
For a moment I could not breathe.
The room disappeared into sensation: the hard edge behind my ribs, a sharp pull low in my abdomen, the pounding of blood in my ears.
I bent forward.
No one moved.
Then Julian said, “Mom, Jesus.”
Not to me.
To her.
As if she had broken a glass.
I pressed my palms against my belly and waited for pain to spread.
It did not.
There was only the ache in my hip and the tight, trembling muscles below my navel.
“Are you bleeding?” Julian asked.
He remained six feet away.
I looked up.
His face showed concern. Real concern, perhaps. But it had to travel through fear, calculation, and anger before reaching me, and by then it was too late.
Eleanor adjusted the cuff of her dress.
“I barely touched her.”
My mouth tasted metallic.
“You pushed me.”
“You lost your balance.”
“You grabbed my arm.”
“You pulled away.”
Julian took half a step forward.
“May, sit down.”
“Open the door.”
“We should make sure you’re okay.”
“Open it.”
“You need to rest.”
“Do not tell me what I need.”
He stopped.
A bruise was already darkening beneath Eleanor’s fingers on my arm.
She saw me look at it.
For the first time, something uncertain crossed her face.
Then it vanished.
“Pregnant women bruise easily,” she said.
I almost admired the speed of the lie.
Outside, a vehicle rolled over gravel.
My parents.
I heard my father’s voice faintly through the front wall, polite and confused.
“Sir, our daughter is inside.”
Another voice answered, too low to understand.
I moved toward the door.
Julian blocked me again.
“My parents are here.”
“We know,” Eleanor said.
“Let them in.”
“They have no business involving themselves.”
“They are already involved.”
I raised my voice.
“Dad!”
Julian reached for my arm.
I jerked away.
“Do not touch me.”
“Maya, lower your voice.”
“Dad!”
A muffled thud sounded outside, followed by my mother calling my name.
Eleanor crossed to the window and pulled the heavy curtain aside by two inches.
“What are they doing with that luggage?” she murmured.
“They checked out of their hotel.”
“They cannot bring suitcases into my front courtyard.”
I stared at her.
Of all the things happening, that was what offended her.
My father called again.
“Maya? Honey?”
I took out my phone.
Julian moved.
He did not grab me immediately. He stepped close enough that I could smell mint on his breath and held out one hand.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
“We need to keep this contained.”
“Contained?”
“Your father has a heart condition.”
The use of that fact felt filthy.
“So open the door before he gets upset.”
“If he sees you like this, he’ll overreact.”
“He should.”
“Maya, think.”
“I am.”
I stepped back until the wall touched my shoulder blades.
From there I could see the room clearly.
The locked front door behind Julian.
Eleanor near the window.
The glass coffee table between us, invoices stacked at one end.
My bag on my shoulder.
My phone in my hand.
The terrace doors shut but not locked, though reaching them meant passing Eleanor and crossing twenty feet of open floor.
A ceramic lamp on the console table.
The bowl of lemons on the drinks cart.
The metal fireplace poker near the mantel, too far away and too easy to turn into something worse.
The table was closest.
Thick glass on a sculptural stone base.
Julian mistook my silence for surrender.
His shoulders lowered.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re all scared. Let’s reset.”
I did not answer.
He took another step.
“We sit down. We make the transfer together. You keep control of the phone. We show you every screen.”
“Then what?”
“Then this is over.”
“No.”
His face tightened again.
“Why are you doing this?”
I looked at him.
“I’m not.”
“What does that mean?”
“You are doing it. I am refusing to help.”
He reached for my bag.
I moved it behind me.
“Don’t.”
“I am not going to hurt you.”
“You already have.”
His hand stopped.
The words affected him more than the bruise had.
“That’s not fair.”
I nearly closed my eyes.
Fair.
He wanted fairness from the woman he had locked inside a room.
“This isn’t who I am,” he said.
I could hear him trying to persuade himself.
“This situation is extreme. I am under extraordinary pressure. You know me.”
“I knew the version of you who didn’t need my PIN.”
His mouth opened.
Behind the door, my father shouted, “Open this door!”
My mother called my name again, louder now.
Eleanor let the curtain fall.
“This is becoming vulgar.”
I laughed.
A startled, breathless sound.
She turned toward me.
May you like
“What is funny?”
“I was just thinking how much my mother worried the jam would embarrass you.”
