Chapter 2 - FOUR WEEKS OF “NOTHING”
Maya first told us something was wrong on a Tuesday night.
I was washing dishes when she appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing her school sweatshirt.
“Mom, does it ever hurt really bad on just one side when you get cramps?”
I turned off the faucet.
“How bad?”
She shrugged.
That should have warned me.
Maya always shrugged when she was frightened.
Robert was sitting at the kitchen island checking work emails.
Without looking up, he said, “She’s fifteen, Emily. It’s cramps.”
“I wasn’t asking you,” Maya muttered.
Robert looked up then.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
That was how conversations in our house had slowly changed.
Robert had not always been cruel.
At least I didn’t think so.
When Maya was little, he built elaborate cardboard castles in the living room and carried her upstairs when she fell asleep watching movies.
But after his construction company began struggling, every problem acquired a price tag.
Dental work.
School trips.
Car repairs.
Groceries.
Doctors.
Anything unexpected became somebody’s fault.
Usually mine.
Increasingly Maya’s.
Two days after that first conversation, the pain disappeared.
Then it returned the following week.
I scheduled an appointment with her pediatrician.
Robert canceled it.
I discovered that only when the clinic called asking whether we wanted to reschedule.
“You canceled Maya’s appointment?”
Robert barely looked away from the television.
“She said she felt better.”
“She told you that?”
“She went to school, didn’t she?”
That became his standard.
If Maya could stand, she was fine.
If she could attend school, she was fine.
If she could eat, she was fine.
And if she cried?
She was being dramatic.
Then came the school nurse’s call.
Maya had doubled over during gym.
By the time I arrived, she was sitting in the nurse’s office with a heating pad across her stomach.
The nurse recommended an evaluation.
Robert met us at urgent care.
He spent most of the visit asking how much everything would cost.
When the physician suggested imaging if the pain continued, Robert laughed.
“For cramps?”
The doctor’s expression hardened.
“For unexplained recurrent pelvic pain.”
Robert heard only the potential bill.
Three days later, Maya woke me at 5:12 in the morning.
She was standing beside my bed crying.
Not loudly.
That frightened me more.
“Mom, please.”
I sat up immediately.
“What?”
“I need the hospital.”
Robert rolled over.
“Seriously?”
Maya folded forward against the wall.
That ended the discussion for me.
May you like
Twenty-eight minutes later, we were in the emergency department.
And less than two hours after that, Robert was tearing up a consent form because he still believed being right mattered more than finding out what was wrong.
