Chapter 2 - What Maya Had Actually Asked For
The paramedics arrived six minutes later.
To Ryan, it felt like an hour.
They took Maya downstairs on a stretcher while Lily sat wrapped in a fleece blanket on the living-room couch. Ryan stayed beside her until a police officer asked him to step into the kitchen.
Marlene was already separated from them.
The driver outside turned out to be from a private car service. He had been told to wait for a woman and a child traveling to Nashville International Airport.
That was all he knew.
It was enough to make Ryan sick.
At the hospital, Maya became more alert.
Ryan wasn’t permitted to crowd her while the emergency department evaluated what she had taken and whether the amount in her system matched normal use.
Lily stayed with Maya’s older sister, Claire, who drove over from Murfreesboro wearing slippers and a sweatshirt because Ryan’s call had caught her halfway through making dinner.
Ryan spent nearly three hours in a molded plastic chair outside Maya’s room.
He kept replaying her words.
I told Marlene to take Lily.
When Maya finally asked to see him, she looked exhausted.
There was an IV in her arm.
Ryan remained near the door.
“What did you mean?”
Maya looked away.
“I asked your mother to help me.”
“With what?”
She rubbed her thumb against the hospital bracelet.
“In case I needed to leave.”
Ryan didn’t understand at first.
Then he did.
“Leave me?”
Maya’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“If I wanted to stay married.”
Ryan sat down slowly.
Maya had never said those words before.
They had fought.
More often in the last year.
Ryan’s construction-management firm had lost a major contract. His hours had been cut for two months. Maya had picked up additional occupational-therapy clients while continuing to manage most of Lily’s school routine.
Ryan knew he had been angry.
He knew he had shouted.
Once, during an argument about money, he had punched the wooden cabinet beside the refrigerator.
Lily had been upstairs.
He had told himself she hadn’t heard.
Apparently, Maya had never believed that.
“I was scared of where we were headed,” she said.
“Did I ever touch you?”
“No.”
“Lily?”
“No.”
“Then why would you tell my mother to take our daughter out of the country?”
“I didn’t.”
Maya looked at him now.
“I asked her if Lily could stay at her house for one night if I needed space from you.”
Ryan said nothing.
“I told her I might call. I never called.”
“Then the passport?”
Maya’s expression changed.
“What about it?”
“It was in the bag.”
She closed her eyes.
“Oh, God.”
“What?”
“I packed an emergency bag.”
The words landed differently than Ryan expected.
Not because they made Marlene innocent.
Because they meant his wife had once been frightened enough to prepare one.
“I put Lily’s clothes in it. My charger. Copies of insurance cards. Her passport.”
“Why the passport?”
“I grabbed documents. I wasn’t planning Canada, Ryan. I wasn’t planning anything. I was panicking.”
“And you gave it to Marlene?”
“No. I kept it in the back of our bedroom closet.”
Ryan remembered the black leather bag.
He had seen it there before.
It belonged to Maya.
Not Marlene.
A detective entered a few minutes later.
She asked Maya several questions.
Had Maya authorized travel?
No.
Had she given Marlene permission to take Lily that day?
No.
Had she knowingly taken more medication than prescribed?
Maya hesitated.
“I remember Marlene making tea.”
Ryan looked at her.
“She told me I looked exhausted. After that…”
Maya frowned.
“I don’t remember going upstairs.”
The detective did not make promises.
Bloodwork could confirm what was present in Maya’s system, she explained, but proving how it got there was another matter.
Marlene had already claimed Maya took the medication voluntarily.
Then the detective mentioned something else.
Marlene had made one statement before requesting an attorney.
She had said, “Maya asked me to protect that child from my son.”
Ryan felt Maya flinch.
For the first time, he understood the size of the problem.
Marlene had not invented everything.
May you like
She had taken pieces of the truth and built something far more dangerous around them.
And Ryan had given her some of those pieces himself.
