Chapter 1 - ELEVEN MINUTES OF SILENCE
The first sign that something was wrong was not what Maya said during our video call. It was the eleven seconds she spent looking past the camera before answering me.
I was in Stuttgart, Germany, inspecting industrial equipment for a client who had threatened to cancel a nine-million-dollar order unless I remained through the first week of January. Maya was eleven days past an emergency C-section in Brooklyn, caring for our newborn son while my mother, Eleanor, my sister, Chloe, and Chloe’s husband, Mark, stayed in our apartment to help. At least, that was the arrangement I believed I had made.
“Are you eating?” I asked.
Maya smiled too quickly. Her blonde hair was tied in a loose, messy bun, and the gray hoodie around her shoulders looked too large for her. “Your mom made soup.”
“What kind?”
Maya glanced to her left.
Eleven seconds passed.
“Vegetable.”
Then Eleanor’s voice came from somewhere beyond the phone. “David, stop interrogating her. She’s recovering, not dying.”
The camera shifted. For half a second, I saw an instant noodle cup on the glass dining table and a pile of used baby bottles near the sink. Then Maya angled the phone toward her face again.
“Liam’s sleeping,” she said.
A weak cry came from behind her.
“I thought the heat was broken,” I said. “You’re wearing a hoodie inside.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s thirty degrees in Brooklyn.”
Eleanor appeared over Maya’s shoulder, elegant as always, her blonde bob perfect and a glass of wine in one hand. “The apartment gets stuffy. Fresh air is good for babies.”
Before I could respond, the call ended.
I dialed Maya again.
No answer.
I called my mother.
She texted immediately: Maya finally fell asleep. Stop waking her. We have everything handled.
I wanted to believe her because belief allowed me to remain in Germany and finish the job I had convinced myself my family needed. So I sent another two thousand dollars to the account Eleanor was using for groceries, prescriptions, and anything Maya or Liam required.
That brought the total to fourteen thousand dollars in eleven days.
Then I returned to the machinery floor and tried to ignore the look Maya had given someone beyond the camera.
May you like
It was not the look of a tired new mother asking for help.
It was the look of a frightened woman asking permission to speak.
