Chapter 1: The Kitchen Doorway
The kitchen was too bright to cry in. That was what I kept thinking. The light poured in through the windows over Diane's sink and hit the white marble island and made everything look clean and staged, and there I was in the foreground with my son burning against my shoulder, his light blue outfit damp where his cheek had been pressed to my dress. My white textured dress clung to my back. I hadn't slept. I could feel Diane before I saw her clearly, that way you feel someone watching you and not helping.
She stood motionless in the doorway at the back of the kitchen. Pulled-back gray hair, dark burgundy dress with the sleeves to her elbows, hands still at her sides. She was in sharp focus even though she was the farthest away. I was the one out of focus in the front of the room, turned half away from her with the baby against me, breathing for both of us. She didn't move. She didn't offer to take him. She just watched like this was a test I was already failing.
My name is Maya and I was twenty-nine with a seven-day-old baby who wouldn't stop crying.
That late morning the clock over Diane's stove said 11:17 and the house smelled like lemon cleaner and coffee no one had offered me. Ethan came through the side door and it made that soft suction sound the kitchen door always made. I heard his keys hit the marble island. I didn't turn right away because the baby was rooting against my collarbone and whimpering, that thin newborn cry that never quite broke. The sound of Ethan's breathing changed the air.
When I turned he was standing in the center of the kitchen with the cream cabinets and the glass-front hutch behind him. His white button-down shirt was wrinkled, sleeves shoved to his elbows, dark trousers. His hands were clasped in front of him and his fingers kept working against each other. His mouth was open like he'd walked in mid-sentence and forgot what it was. He looked shocked, not just tired. Tense in his shoulders. He stared at me holding his son and then his eyes flicked past me to his mother in the doorway.
I felt the shift happen in real time. The door was still open behind him. The daylight didn't change. Diane hadn't blinked. Ethan's chest rose and fell too fast. I adjusted the baby higher on my chest with both arms, tucking his head under my chin, and felt how hot his forehead was through the thin blue fabric. My tears came without a sound at first, then with a small, shaking breath I couldn't hide. I looked directly at my husband.
May you like
I told myself he'd come because I'd called. I told myself he wanted to be here. I wondered if his mother had called him first.
Did you come?
