Chapter 6: The Thing Damon Said When He Thought I Wasn't There
Gerald filed the response that afternoon.
By evening, Damon had seen it.
I knew because he came home at six-fifteen, set his bag down harder than necessary, and stood in the kitchen doorway looking at me with an expression I had not seen on him before.
Not anger exactly.
Something closer to the look of a man who has realized the thing he thought was under control is not.
"You filed a motion to remove Renee from the house."
"My attorney did."
"She's my sister."
"She filed a guardianship petition against me, Damon.
In what world did you expect me to do nothing?"
He stepped into the kitchen.
Maya was upstairs.
Claudette had gone home an hour ago, and the house was quiet in the particular way it gets when two people are about to say things that cannot be unsaid.
"I told you," he said.
"I told her it was too far."
"And then you sat at that table last night and told me she had a point."
"I said we should talk—"
"You said she had a point.
About my hours.
About Atlanta." I turned to face him fully.
"Were you part of this, Damon?
Not just aware of it.
Part of it."
He looked away.
"Look at me."
He looked at me.
"Were you part of this?"
"Renee asked me to support the petition," he said.
"I told her I'd think about it."
The refrigerator hummed.
Somewhere upstairs, Maya's music played faintly through her bedroom floor.
"You told her you'd think about it," I said.
"I hadn't decided."
"But you didn't say no."
He didn't answer.
"How long has she been planning this?"
"A few months.
She's been worried about Maya for a while.
She thinks—"
"I don't care what she thinks.
I'm asking about you.
How long have you known she was building a case?"
A long pause.
"Since February."
February.
Five months.
Five months of dinners and holidays and Maya's school play and her birthday and the trip we took to the coast in April, and the whole time Damon had known his sister was constructing a legal argument to take our daughter away from me.
"Get out of my kitchen," I said.
"Nadia—"
"I'm not shouting.
I'm not threatening you.
I'm telling you to get out of my kitchen right now, because if you stay in it I'm going to say something in front of our daughter that I don't want her to hear."
He left.
I stood at the counter until I was sure my hands had stopped shaking.
Then I went upstairs.
Maya's door was open a crack.
I pushed it gently.
She was sitting at her desk, headphones around her neck, a drawing in front of her.
She looked up.
"Daddy looked sad," she said.
"Daddy and I are working some things out."
"Are you getting divorced?"
I sat on the edge of her bed.
"Where did you hear that word?"
"Aunt Renee." Maya looked at her drawing.
"She said sometimes mommies and daddies decide they're better apart.
She said it doesn't mean anyone stops loving you."
I was very still.
"When did she say that?"
"Last week.
When she came for dinner." Maya picked up her pencil.
"She said it a lot, actually.
Different ways."
Last week.
Before the suitcase.
Before the petition.
Before any of this had happened in the open.
Renee had been preparing Maya.
I took out my phone and opened the notes app and typed exactly what Maya had just told me, with the date and time.
"Mommy?"
"Yes, sweetheart."
"Are we going to be okay?"
I looked at my daughter.
Her braids were loose again on one side.
Her drawing was of a house with two figures in front of it — one tall, one small.
"Yes," I said.
"We are."
Downstairs, I heard the front door open.
May you like
Then Renee's voice, and Damon's answering it.
And then a third voice I did not recognize at all.
