Chapter 6
Mom came home the next afternoon with a white plastic bag from the pharmacy on Main. I heard the crinkle from my bedroom upstairs and knew right away it wasn't medicine. She'd already filled all that at the ER. This was something else.
She called me upstairs. "Maya, can you come here for a minute?"
My room looked the same, same quilt, same glow-in-the-dark stars she'd stuck on the ceiling when I was five, but Mom had cleared a space on top of my dresser. She pulled a gray metal box out of the bag. It was about the size of a lunchbox, with a flat black keypad on top and a little slot for a key too.
"This is yours," she said. She knelt so we were at eye level. "The doctor said you need to be able to get your inhaler anytime. No asking. No waiting."
She'd bought two inhalers to put inside. My rescue one and the backup, plus the spacer that I hated because it was so big but that helped me breathe better. She showed me the code. Four numbers. My birthday. 0-7-1-8. She let me punch it in myself. The buttons beeped, small and bright. The lid popped with a click.
I stared at it. It felt strange to have something locked that was just for breathing.
"Try it," she said. "Close it and open it again."
I did. Beep beep beep beep. Click. It worked. My hands were a little shaky but I got it on the second try. Mom smiled, but her mouth was tight.
Grandma Diane appeared in the doorway. She hadn't knocked. Her arms were crossed like they were in the living room that day, same beige shirt tucked into the same pants.
"What's that?" she asked.
Mom stood up. "It's a lockbox. For Maya's inhalers. The ER care plan said we need to keep them accessible to her, and locked from anyone else."
Diane walked in without being asked and looked down at the box on my dresser. She reached out and tugged the lid once, like she was checking it was really locked.
"You put a lock in a little girl's room and didn't tell me?" she said. Her voice was flat. "In my house."
"It's still your house," Mom said quietly. "But her medication has to stay with her. Lauren, the nurse, and the doctor both said so. Only me and Maya will have the code."
"Only you and Maya," Diane repeated. She looked at me then. "So I'm supposed to be a stranger in my own home. That's respect?"
That word again. Respect. The same word she'd used when the police were downstairs. She was disrespectful. She can breathe after she learns respect.
Mom swallowed. "It's not about respect, Mom. It's about safety. CPS is coming next week. This is part of what they told us to do."
Diane's arms tightened. "I raised you without lockboxes. You breathed fine. You want me to ask permission to get into a box in my granddaughter's room? That's not safety. That's you telling me I'm the problem."
She wasn't yelling. That made it worse. I kept my hand on the edge of my dresser.
Mom didn't answer right away. She took a breath. "You can ask me. Anytime. But Maya shouldn't have to ask anyone when she can't breathe."
Diane turned and left, but she didn't go far. She stood in the hall right outside my door where she could see everything, arms crossed, watching.
Mom looked at me and mouthed, It's okay. Then louder, for Diane to hear, she said, "Maya, show me one more time that you can open it by yourself."
That was scene three, I guess, but for me it was the only one that mattered.
Everyone was looking. Mom by the window, wringing her hands. Grandma in the doorway, so still.
My fingers felt thick. I punched 0-7-1-8. I was too fast and hit 0-7-1-9 and it buzzed angrily, a long flat beep. My chest tightened even though I wasn't having an attack.
"Slow," Mom whispered. "You've got it."
I cleared it and tried again. 0. 7. 1. 8. Beep beep beep beep. Click.
The lid popped. There they were. Two blue and red inhalers and the clear spacer, just lying there, not hidden. I picked up the rescue one. It was light and warm from being in the box. I clicked the cap off and on. I didn't need it. I just wanted to hold it.
I looked up. Mom's eyes got shiny.
Grandma Diane hadn't moved. Her arms were still crossed. Her face didn't change. She watched me hold my own medicine like she was memorizing the code from how my fingers moved.
"Good job, honey," Mom said. She closed the box and locked it again. "That stays here. You can use it whenever you need. Not upstairs in a closet. Here."
Diane finally spoke from the hall. "So she gets to lock her door next?"
Mom didn't turn around. "It's not a lock on the room, Mom. It's a lock for her lungs."
Diane made a small sound in her throat and walked down the stairs, each step loud.
I sat on the edge of my bed and listened to the house get quiet. The lockbox sat on my dresser and every few seconds its little red light blinked, like it was breathing too. Mom sat next to me and put her hand over mine, the same way she had on the living room floor.
May you like
"You did perfect," she said.
But I couldn't stop looking at the open doorway where Grandma had been standing. The box was locked. My inhaler was right there. And still, the air in my room felt tight.
