Fourteen Thousand Dollars to Care for My Wife Stolen for a Florida Vacation

“It will take as long as it takes,” Vance said. “And if we find that you had any knowledge of this account before today, the state will file its own charges.”

She took a single sheet of paper from her folder and laid it in front of me, alongside a black ballpoint pen.

“This is the authorization for a full forensic audit of Miller Engineering Associates,” Julian said.

I picked up the pen, its plastic cold in my fingers.

My hand hovered over the signature line.

“If I sign this, everything is public?” I asked.

“Everything,” Julian said.

I pressed the pen to the paper.

The ink on the forensic audit authorization was barely dry when my mother called, her voice uncharacteristically soft, asking me to come to the brownstone. 

Pregnancy& Maternity

I stood by the mantelpiece in her parlor, my hand resting near a silver-framed portrait of my father.

Eleanor sat on the edge of her green velvet sofa, holding a damp handkerchief.

“I was wrong, David,” she said, her voice trembling. “The stress of the holiday, the winter weather, it made me lose my head.”

I rubbed my gold wedding ring, saying nothing.

“Please let me see my grandson,” she added, looking up at me. “Just for an hour.”

She reached out, but I stepped back toward the door.

“Maya is still in the hospital,” I said.

“I know,” Eleanor said, wiping her cheek. “I want to make things right with her too. I wrote her a letter.”

She handed me a folded piece of heavy cream stationery.

“Give her this,” she said. “Please.”

I took the envelope and slipped it into my coat.

“We will talk after the bank finishes the audit,” I said.

My mother stopped wiping her eyes and looked up, her expression tightening.

“That is still going forward?” she asked.

I did not answer her as I walked out the front door.

By the afternoon, I was back at Methodist Hospital, standing in the doorway of Maya’s room.

Chloe was already inside, sitting on the vinyl guest chair with three shiny shopping bags at her feet.

“I bought these little footed pajamas,” Chloe said, her words rushing together as she pulled out a tiny blue sleeper. “And some cotton caps, Maya. They are organic cotton, the very best kind.”

Maya lay in the adjustable bed, her right hand pressed flat over her surgical incision.

“Thank you, Chloe,” Maya said softly.

“We just want to be a family again for the baby’s sake,” Chloe said, her voice dropping to a rapid whisper.

She leaned closer to the bed, her fingers twisting air where her jewelry usually sat.

“Mark is so incredibly sorry,” Chloe said. “He did not understand how sick you were, Maya. If you could just talk to David, tell him to drop this nonsense with the bank. It is ruining us.”

I stepped into the room, my boots heavy on the linoleum.

Chloe jumped, nearly dropping the baby clothes back into the bag.

“David,” she said, her breath catching. “I was just telling Maya about the baby gifts.”

“You need to leave, Chloe,” I said.

She gathered her shopping bags, her movements frantic as she rose from the chair.

“Just think about what I said, Maya,” Chloe called out as she hurried toward the door.

I followed her out into the corridor, where the air smelled of pine cleaner and floor wax.

“Do not come back here,” I said.

“David, you are being completely unreasonable,” she said, her hand flying to her bare collarbone. “Mark cannot sleep. He is sick over this whole misunderstanding.”

That was when I looked closely at her neck.

The heavy, triple-strand diamond necklace our father had bought her for her college graduation was gone.

“Where is your necklace, Chloe?” I asked.

She froze, her hand dropping to her side.

“It is in the shop,” she said, her eyes shifting to the exit sign at the end of the hall.

“Which shop?” I asked.

“The one on Flatbush,” she said, already stepping backward toward the elevators. “The clasp was loose.”

She did not wait for the elevator cabin to arrive, turning instead toward the heavy steel door of the stairwell.

I watched the door click shut behind her before I walked back into Maya’s room.

Maya was holding Liam, her fingers gently stroking his dark hair as he slept.

I took the cream envelope my mother had given me out of my pocket and handed it to her. 

Pregnancy& Maternity

“My mother wanted you to have this,” I said.

Maya unfolded the heavy paper and read the neat, slanted script.

“She says she wants to come helper us when we get discharged,” Maya said, her voice flat. “She says she has been sick with worry.”

Maya turned the paper over, then beckoned me closer.

“David, look at the loop on the letter G in this note,” she said, pointing to the word green.

I leaned over the bed, looking at the distinctive, oversized loop.

“Now look at this,” Maya said, reaching into her bedside drawer.

She pulled out the original handwritten note we had found on the kitchen counter in our freezing apartment on New Year’s Eve.

She placed the two papers side by side on the overbed table.

The slanted letters, the sharp crossings of the Ts, and the heavy pressure on the downstrokes were identical.

“She wrote them both,” I said.

“The first one was to leave me behind,” Maya said, her voice steady but cold. “The second one is to get her money back.”

I took both pieces of paper from the table.

I folded the apology note and put it in my pocket, unconvinced.