CHAPTER 26 Maya
Maya
The instructor clapped her hands. “All right, ladies! Let’s wake those bodies up.”
Music started somewhere overhead. Something aggressively upbeat from at least fifteen years ago.
The class began moving in loose unison.
Maya tried to focus on following along. Marching in place, arm sweeps through the resistance of the water.
Beside her, Edith was driving through each exercise with the confidence of someone who had been doing this for years. Her cane sat abandoned against the wall outside the pool.
Around her, conversations drifted in and out.
Garden centers. Grandchildren. Someone’s knee replacement.
And underneath it all, pointedly, noticeably, people avoiding her.
Maya felt every second of it.
The harder Maya worked, the less room there was in her head for anything else. She kicked harder. Drove her arms harder through the water. Let herself breathe heavily instead of pretending she was fine.
Barbara had chaired two of Maya’s fundraisers. Maya had helped build the accessibility ramp at her mother’s church.
Barbara looked directly at her. And looked away.
It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did.
She knew people were talking
She drove her body harder through the water, muscles straining against the resistance, breath rough in her chest, until the ache inside her became physical enough to manage.
She’d visited Reid’s office before. The difference was that this time she was not here for Reid. She wasn’t meeting him for lunch, he wasn’t escorting her to his desk, introducing her to his colleagues.
Maya signed where her lawyer indicated. She initialed where he pointed.
Director Sullivan sat across from them, watching them with a frown on her face.
The meeting ended with more signatures, more careful language, more pages placed into folders. Her lawyer spoke. Sullivan answered. Maya listened, but distantly.
She was not here for Reid.
She kept reminding herself of that as they walked out.
The office space was as she remembered it. Same open plan. Same long windows. Same parallel lines of light across the desks.
She couldn’t see him but his team were all at their desks. The last time she’d seen those people, they’d been standing behind her husband as she was arrested.
For one wild, humiliating second she thought she might cry right there. She raised her chin and tried to project a confidence she did not feel.
She was almost at the elevator bank when Brian called her name.
She looked over and he was already moving toward her. “I’m so sorry, Maya.”
Maya hadn’t expected this.
“I stood there and let it happen.” His voice roughened. “I should have stopped him. I’m sorry.”
She felt the words hit somewhere deep and bruised.
Diane and Wilson were there now too.
Wilson scrubbed a hand over his face. “We knew you. We should have tackled Reid off that stage.”
Diane’s expression was steady. “You deserved better from all of us.”
Brian scrubbed a hand over his face. “We backed the wrong person,” he said.
Nothing could undo the humiliation and confusion of that morning.
Nothing could erase the sound of Reid reading her rights.
But this—
Maya hadn’t expected this.
She had always liked Reid’s colleagues. They had come to their house for dinner. Argued over board games in their living room while Reid rolled his eyes and Maya laughed.
And now they were apologizing for failing her.
“Where’s Reid?" she asked.
The three of them exchanged a look.
“He’s not in today,” Wilson said slowly.
Maya looked between them.
"He's fine," Brian said. "He's just—"
Diane interrupted him. “He's been suspended without pay.”
Maya’s mouth dropped open. "Suspended?”
"Yes."
Maya looked at his desk. It was neat, which meant nothing—Reid's desk was always neat.
"What happened?” she asked.
A look passed between Brian and Wilson. “Uh,” Wilson said.
“He punched Julian Cross," Diane said.
Maya’s mouth dropped open. Reid had punched someone?
Reid never even raised his voice.
Reid had punched someone and been suspended for a week. For her.
She looked at Reid's desk one more time.
“Thank you,” she said to Diane, to Brian and Wilson.
Then she turned to the elevator.
She pressed the button and waited and thought about a man who had spent his entire career being the most controlled person in every room he entered, and what it meant that he had lost that control.
The elevator opened.
She stepped inside.
He had not believed her when it mattered most.
But he had punched Julian Cross for her.
She didn’t know what that meant.
The city thinned as she drove away from the city, glass buildings giving way to smaller storefronts, then the tree-lined streets she knew so well.
Reid had punched Julian Cross.
Maya tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
Reid, who folded cardboard before putting it in the recycling. Reid, who apologized to furniture when he bumped into it.
The afternoon sunlight flickered through the trees as she turned into the neighborhood.
Everything looked so normal.
Maya had spent most of her childhood moving. Different highways, different campgrounds, different temporary friendships each school semester. Her parents loved the open road, loved to find new places.
But this place was a constant.
Maya slowed as she passed the school where Owen worked.
Bright painted murals stretched along the fence. The accessibility ramp near the auditorium entrance was one she’d lobbied the district to install.
Without really deciding to, she turned into the parking lot.
Maya waited for her brother by the school gates.
Students spilled out in loose clusters. A ball skidded across the sidewalk. Someone shouted and laughter followed.
Owen came out a few minutes later, wheeling himself down the ramp with ease. She waved at him and he raised an eyebrow, surprised to see her.
He rolled over and stopped in front of her. “Hey, you want to walk me home?”
She nodded.
They moved slowly along the sidewalk, the noise of the school fading behind them. The sidewalk was cracked where a tree root had pushed against the concrete, and Owen veered around it.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
“How’s Jenny?” Owen said suddenly and then he cleared his throat, adjusting his grip on the wheels. “And the Merritts. How is everyone? Everyone okay?”
Maya blinked at him. “They’re fine. Why?”
He shrugged. “Just asking. And the job search?" he asked. “How’s that?”
"Ongoing."
"Meaning bad."
Maya shrugged.
They walked and wheeled another block in silence, before Owen spoke again.
"You organized everything," Owen said. "After my accident. You were the one who rang the relatives. You made the schedule for hospital visits so nobody showed up at the same time and tired me out. You researched the rehabilitation options."
"Someone had to."
“You didn’t start doing that with the community work,” he said. “You’ve been doing it your whole life.”
They turned into a park. The path curved ahead of them, the noise of the street dropping away.
She let out a breath, frustrated. “I like being useful. That’s not some kind of trauma response, Owen. That’s just—who I am.”
“I know that’s who you are,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s not real. I’m saying it’s not the whole picture.”
Maya didn’t answer.
Owen watched her for a moment longer, then went on.
“When Reid came along,” he said, “he didn’t need anything from you.”
Maya’s chest tightened, just slightly.
"Owen."
"I'm getting somewhere," he said.
Maya pressed her lips together and let him.
"Reid loved you for no reason," Owen said.
She glanced at him again, more sharply this time. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, he didn't need you to fix anything. He didn't need you to organize anything or manage anything or make his life easier. He just—" He gestured vaguely. “Loved you. For no utility whatsoever."
Maya looked away.
"And then he arrested you," Owen said.
Maya's hands pressed flat against her thighs.
"That's why it broke you the way it did,” Owen said quietly. “It confirmed the thing you've always been afraid of." He paused. "That you needed to be giving more to be loved.”
The playground blurred slightly. Maya blinked, annoyed at her unending capacity for tears.
"I hate it when you're perceptive," she said, her voice not quite steady.
“Sorry.” Owen didn't sound particularly sorry about it. "I work with teenagers. You end up understanding more about fucked up ideas than you want.”
They kept moving along the path.
The afternoon sunlight filtered through the trees overhead in shifting patches. Owen’s wheels rolled against the sidewalk, matching her pace.
“For instance,” Owen said, breaking the silence. “I don’t react well when I think a pretty girl pities me. It makes me… lash out like a total asshole.”
Maya looked at him with surprise. Owen kept his attention fixed ahead.
“That’s… surprisingly self-aware.”
“Don’t sound too impressed.”
“I’m a little impressed.”
Owen ignored that. He glanced at her briefly.
“Reid isn’t giving up,” Owen said.
Maya stared ahead at the path winding through the trees.
“Owen—”
“Your husband is losing his goddamn mind, Maya,” he told her.
She didn’t know what to do with that.