Chapter 8: What Her Mother Knew
Maya answered.
"Your father just called me." Her mother's voice was careful.
Measured.
The voice she used when she was trying to manage something.
"He says you've changed the locks."
"I have."
"Maya—"
"The court gave me an injunction, Mum.
I was entitled to."
A pause.
"I know." Her mother said it quietly.
Something in the two words landed differently than Maya expected.
Not defensive.
Not manipulative.
Almost ashamed.
"Mum."
"I need to tell you something." A long breath on the line.
"I didn't know about the document.
Not until after he'd had it witnessed.
When I found out, I told him it was wrong.
I told him to fix it."
"And?"
"He said it was already done.
He said you wouldn't fight it.
He said—" Her voice broke slightly.
Recovered.
"He said you never fought for anything."
Maya stood very still in her kitchen.
"He said I never fought for anything."
"I should have called you then.
I should have told you what he'd done.
I didn't.
I told myself it would resolve itself.
That he'd come to his senses.
That the family would—" She stopped.
"I was wrong.
And you ended up standing in a hallway looking at your own boxes."
The kitchen was quiet.
"Why are you telling me this now?" Maya asked.
"Because I watched your father come home just now and I saw his face.
And I realised he still doesn't think he did anything wrong.
He thinks you're the problem.
He thinks if you'd just been more — flexible—" She made a small sound.
Not quite a laugh.
Not quite a sob.
"And I thought, if I don't say something to you now, I'm going to spend the rest of my life being the woman who stood in that apartment helping hang pictures while her daughter's things were in the hallway."
Maya sat down at the kitchen table.
"I'm not asking you to forgive him," her mother continued.
"Or me.
I know I let you down.
I'm not going to pretend I didn't." Her voice steadied.
"I just needed you to know that I knew it was wrong.
That I've always known you worked for that apartment.
That it's yours."
Maya looked at the grandmother photograph on the kitchen shelf.
Her grandmother.
Her mother's mother.
A woman who had worked her whole life and left everything she had to her daughter — and her daughter had stood in Maya's hallway helping hang someone else's pictures.
"What are you going to do?" Maya asked.
"I don't know yet." Honesty in it.
No pretence.
"But I'm not going to stand next to him and tell you it was right."
A silence opened between them.
Not the hostile kind.
Something older.
Something that had been there before all of this and might still be there when all of this was finished.
"Come for coffee on Saturday," Maya said.
"Not here.
Somewhere neutral."
Her mother was quiet for a moment.
"Yes.
All right."
"Just you.
Not Dad."
"Just me," her mother said.
"I understand."
After the call ended, Maya stayed at the kitchen table for a long time.
She thought about her father's voice on the recording.
*She'll accept it eventually.
She always does.*
She had accepted things.
She was aware of that.
Years of things.
Small diminishments she'd filed away without examining.
The way her achievements had been received with a kind of mild surprise, as if she had managed something slightly beyond what was expected of her.
The way Daniel's needs had always been framed as more urgent, more serious, more real.
She had accepted it because she had told herself it didn't matter.
She had her apartment.
She had her work.
She had built her own life on her own foundations, and she had thought that was enough to protect her.
She had not understood that the people who love you the least carefully can still reach in and take what you built, if you let them stand close enough to it.
She would not make that mistake again.
Her phone buzzed.
A text from Karen.
*Forensic analysis complete.
Signature confirmed as not genuine.
File has been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for review.
Expect formal contact within ten days.*
Maya read it twice.
Set the phone face-up on the table this time.
Ten days.
She looked around her kitchen.
The familiar shapes of her own things.
The mug she had bought at a market years ago.
The small plant on the windowsill that had nearly died twice and kept coming back.
The grandmother photograph.
She picked up her tea.
May you like
It had gone cold.
She made a fresh one.
