Chapter 1 - Eleven Days
I came home eleven days after my son was born.
Nobody knew I was coming.
At 11:27 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, I unlocked our Park Slope apartment with a suitcase full of gifts and one stupidly happy thought:
I was finally going to hold my son.
“Maya?”
No answer.
Then I heard a newborn crying.
Weakly.
I rushed toward the kitchen.
Maya tried to stand the moment she saw me.
“David... you're home.”
Then her knees folded.
I dropped my suitcase and caught her inches above the hardwood.
She weighed almost nothing.
Her face was gray-white. Her lips were cracked. Beneath her oversized cream cardigan, blood had seeped through her pale pink pajamas near the incision from the emergency C-section she'd had eleven days earlier.
And Liam—
My son.
The baby I had only seen through video calls—
was shivering inside a wicker bassinet beneath one thin blue blanket.
“Maya! What happened?!”
“I’m okay.”
She wasn’t.
On the table sat a cup of cold instant ramen.
I carried Maya to the sofa, wrapped Liam inside my overcoat, then opened the refrigerator.
Empty.
Completely empty.
Except for a handwritten note.
We went to South Beach with Chloe, Mark, Ethan and his family for New Year’s. Make do with whatever’s in the pantry. Don’t play the victim or bother David.
Mom.
I read it twice.
“I sent them fourteen thousand dollars.”
Maya started crying.
“They went to Miami.”
Something inside me became frighteningly quiet.
I photographed everything.
The refrigerator.
The ramen.
The blood.
The note.
Then I opened my banking app.
Mom.
Chloe.
Mark.
Three authorized cards.
Three taps.
Canceled.
I lifted Maya into my arms.
“You’re going to the hospital. Now.”
Fireworks began exploding beyond the windows.
Then I noticed the security camera above our doorway.
A green light blinked.
I opened the archive.
The latest thumbnail appeared.
My mother was carrying shopping bags out of our apartment.
Maya lay on the sofa behind her.
I zoomed in.
One of those bags was filled with unopened baby formula.
“What did they do to you?”
Maya grabbed my wrist.
“David... don’t watch it.”
I looked at her.
She wasn’t afraid of my mother.
She was afraid of what I was about to discover.
I pressed play.
May you like
And the first person who appeared on the recording wasn’t Eleanor.
It was someone who was supposed to be in Germany with me.
