Chapter 7: The Night Before the Wedding That Never Was
The police spoke to her father on a Wednesday.
Maya was not there.
She was at work when Karen called to tell her.
"Detective Constable Farrow interviewed your father this morning at home.
He denied the forgery.
He said the recording was taken out of context.
He said you had agreed verbally and the document was merely a written record of that agreement." Karen paused.
"He also said, and I'm quoting directly from the officer's notes, that you have always been difficult and that this is a pattern of behaviour."
Maya set her pen down on her desk.
"He said that to a police officer."
"He did."
"Okay."
"The detective also noted that your father became, and I'm quoting again, visibly agitated and raised his voice when shown the forensic comparison of your signature on the document versus your signature on the mortgage agreement." A brief pause.
"They've asked for the original document for further forensic analysis.
Your father's solicitor handed it over under pressure."
"What happens now?"
"They are deciding whether to proceed with a formal caution or charges.
It may take a week or two.
In the meantime, I have applied to the court for an emergency injunction preventing any further occupation or attempted transfer of the property until the matter is resolved."
"Will we get it?"
"Given the evidence, yes.
I expect confirmation tomorrow."
Maya looked out the window of her office.
Down on the street, someone was walking a dog.
Two people were sharing an umbrella.
Everything looked entirely ordinary.
"Karen.
If the injunction goes through — can I go back to my apartment?"
"Yes.
With a locksmith and a copy of the injunction order, you are entitled to re-enter your own property."
The injunction came through the next morning.
Diane drove her.
They picked up a locksmith on the way.
Maya carried the folder of documents under one arm and the injunction order in her hand.
Her father's car was not outside the building.
Neither was Daniel's.
They took the lift this time.
Maya watched the floor numbers rise.
Twelve floors.
Her floor.
The locksmith worked quickly.
The new key turned in the lock with a clean, solid click.
The door swung open.
Her boxes were still in the hallway.
Daniel's pictures were still on her walls.
His jacket was on her coat hook.
Two mugs she had never seen before were on the kitchen counter.
She stood in the doorway.
"Take your time," Diane said behind her.
Maya walked in.
She lifted Daniel's jacket off the hook and set it on the nearest box.
She picked up the two mugs and placed them carefully in a bag by the door.
She walked to the nearest picture on the wall — a large framed print she had never seen before, something abstract in grey and gold — and unhooked it from the nail.
She set it against the wall, face in.
Then she turned around and looked at the room.
Her walls.
Her window.
Her stripe of afternoon light across her floorboards.
"Right," she said.
They spent two hours moving Daniel's things out and her things back in.
Box by box.
Shelf by shelf.
The grandmother photograph went back on the kitchen shelf in exactly the same spot.
She was hanging her own pictures when her father arrived.
She heard him in the hallway — the familiar weight of his footsteps, the way he knocked three times quickly when he was impatient.
She opened the door before he could knock a fourth time.
He looked at the room behind her.
At the locksmith's receipt on the hall table.
At Diane standing in the kitchen doorway.
"You had the locks changed."
"I did."
"You can't just—"
"I have an injunction order." She held it up.
"The court issued it yesterday.
You are not permitted to enter, occupy, or attempt to transfer this property until the legal matter is resolved."
He stared at the paper.
His face did something complicated — not defeat exactly, but the first hairline crack in something that had been very certain of itself.
"Maya.
This has gone too far."
"You forged my signature, Dad."
"I made a decision for this family—"
"You forged my signature." She kept her voice even.
"The police have the recording.
They have the document.
They have a forensic comparison.
And now I have this injunction." She lowered the paper.
"It's already gone as far as it needed to go."
He looked at her for a long moment.
"The wedding is in five days."
"I know."
"Daniel has nowhere to—"
"Daniel is a thirty-one-year-old man.
He can find somewhere to live." She met his eyes.
"That was never your problem to solve by taking from me."
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
For the first time in her life, Maya watched her father have nothing left to say.
He turned and walked back down the hallway.
He didn't look back.
The lift doors opened.
Closed.
Diane came to stand beside her in the doorway.
"He didn't apologise," Maya said.
"No."
"He's not going to, is he."
"Probably not."
Maya nodded slowly.
She stepped back inside her apartment and closed the door.
The locksmith's receipt was still on the hall table.
She picked it up, folded it neatly, and put it in her folder with all the other documents.
Then she went to the kitchen and made tea.
Outside, the city went on as it always had.
Somewhere below, a door opened and closed.
Her phone lit up on the counter.
A text from her brother.
*The wedding's been postponed.
Just so you know.*
She read it once.
Set the phone down.
She poured one cup.
Put the second one away without thinking about it.
Sat down at her own kitchen table, in her own apartment, in the building she had paid for herself.
And drank her tea in silence.
The silence felt completely different now.
But before she could settle into it — her phone lit up again.
Not a text this time.
A call.
From her mother.
May you like
And when Maya looked at the screen, something in her mother's timing — too fast, too deliberate — made her stomach tighten.
This wasn't over yet.
