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Maya did not answer. She turned and walked slowly back toward the bedroom, her steps short and guarded, her hand never leaving her side.
I followed her through the dark living room. My boots clicked on the bare hardwood floor. The furniture looked exactly as it had when I left three weeks ago, except for a thick layer of dust on the coffee table.
“She was supposed to stay with you,” I said. “She and Chloe promised they would live here while I was in Germany.”
Maya lay down on the edge of the bed, pulling a heavy wool quilt up to her chin. Her shoulders shook under the layers.
“They left on Tuesday,” Maya said.
“Why?” I asked. “Did Eleanor have an emergency?”
“She said she had plans,” Maya whispered.
I rubbed my gold wedding ring, rotating the metal around my finger. I had wired fourteen thousand dollars to our shared account before I boarded the flight to Munich. It was meant to cover a private night nurse, grocery deliveries, and the extra heating costs for the winter.
“I will get you some hot soup,” I said. “And I will turn on the kitchen burners to warm the place up.”
“The gas is off, David,” she said.
I went into the small kitchen and pulled the chain on the overhead light. The bulb flickered, casting a harsh yellow glare over the white subway tile.
I opened the refrigerator. The shelves were entirely bare. There was no milk, no bread, and none of the pre-made meals I had ordered before my departure. The only thing inside was a small plastic jar of yellow mustard.
On the laminate counter, next to the empty toaster, sat a piece of heavy cream stationery.
I recognized my mother’s elegant, slanted handwriting immediately.
I picked up the paper. The note was brief.
“Maya, we cannot spend our holiday waiting for you to feel better. A real mother does not play the victim. We have taken the spare keys. Eleanor.”
My fingers tightened on the paper. I looked at the empty wooden block where our spare set of keys usually hung.
I stared at the words she had written on the thick cardstock. My mother had sat at our dining table before I left, her voice firm and aristocratic, telling me she would handle everything. She told me to focus on the German pipeline project, promising that she and my sister Chloe would care for Maya and the newborn.
“Maya,” I called out, walking back to the bedroom doorway. “Where is the baby’s formula?”
“They took the boxes,” she said from beneath the quilt. “They said it would spoil if the power went out.”
“They took the baby’s formula?” I asked.
She nodded once, her teeth chattering.
I walked down the narrow hallway to the nursery. The room was tiny, barely big enough for a chest of drawers and the white wicker bassinet we had bought at an estate sale in Greenpoint.