Chapter 8
Maya went back for one class on Tuesday.
I parked outside the school and watched her walk toward the doors. She stopped halfway, turned, and waved. I waved back.
Then she went inside.
I drove to a café two streets away and tried to read a book. I read the same paragraph six times. When her class ended, my phone rang.
“I did it,” she said.
“How was it?”
“Everyone acted a little weird for the first five minutes. Then Lacey asked if I remembered our homework, and I didn’t.”
I heard her laugh.
“Do you want me to pick you up?”
“Not yet. I’m going to talk to the counselor.”
I stayed in the café until she called again. She came out carrying a folder of assignments and looking tired. She also looked pleased with herself.
We added another class the next week.
At home, Tasha celebrated each visit with dinner. Sometimes that meant making Maya’s favorite food. Once it meant letting Maya choose a movie and promising not to ask a single school question until it ended.
I began looking for an apartment for the two of us. Tasha told me not to rush.
“I love having you here,” she said.
“I know. Maya does too. I think we need a place where she can decide how her room looks and know it’s hers.”
Tasha came with us to see apartments. Maya rejected one because its bedroom window faced a dark alley. In another, she noticed the entrance was well lit and the school bus stopped nearby.
The third place had a small kitchen, two bedrooms, and a courtyard where Pepper could visit with Tasha. Maya walked through the rooms twice.
“Could I paint that wall blue?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“What if I don’t like blue later?”
“We’ll paint it again.”
She smiled. “Then I like this one.”
I signed the lease after checking the locks and talking through our safety plan with the advocate. Maya chose a desk by the window. Tasha promised to help us move.
We still had to decide what to do with our old house. I went there with my sister and an officer present to collect the rest of our belongings. Robert no longer lived there under the conditions in place, but I wanted Maya nowhere near it.
I packed her books, soccer trophies, and clothes. In my own closet, I found a dress I had worn on our last anniversary. I held it for a moment, then left it hanging. I could decide about the rest later.
At the bottom of Maya’s desk drawer, I found a folded drawing. It showed three people standing outside a house. The smallest figure was some distance away. I took it home and asked Maya if she wanted it.
She studied it.
“I drew that before we went to the hospital.”
“I thought it might matter to you.”
“I don’t want it on my wall.”
“That’s okay.”
“Can we keep it in my folder?”
I put it with the papers she had asked us to save. She was choosing what stayed close and what could be put away.
We painted her bedroom blue on a Saturday. Maya, Tasha, and I had paint on our arms by noon. Pepper waited at the door, deeply disappointed that he couldn’t join us.
When Dad’s old soccer friend, Mr. Alvarez, heard we were moving, he offered to assemble Maya’s desk. Maya had known him for years through the team. She asked me to stay while he worked, and I did.
After he left, she said, “I liked that he asked before he came into my room.”
“I did too.”
Every ordinary courtesy mattered now.
That night, Maya slept in the new apartment for the first time. I heard her get up around midnight. I went to the hallway, where she stood looking at the front door.
“Is it locked?” she asked.
“Let’s check.”
We checked it together. Then she returned to bed, and I sat beside her until she fell asleep.
The next morning, I woke to the sound of a cupboard opening. Maya was in the kitchen making toast.
“I was hungry,” she said.
I smiled. “There’s jam in the fridge.”
May you like
She found it herself. Sunlight fell across the counter. Tasha texted to ask whether she could bring Pepper for a visit, and Maya replied before I could.
For a few minutes, our new home felt ordinary. I wanted to remember that morning.
