Chapter 4 - ELEANOR'S VERSION
Eleanor came back from Miami the next morning.
Not voluntarily.
Her hotel demanded a valid payment method after the frozen cards failed.
Mark stayed behind.
Eleanor showed up at David’s apartment at 10:17 a.m.
David met her in the lobby.
Not upstairs.
She was furious.
“You humiliated me.”
David almost laughed.
“You left my wife eleven days after abdominal surgery with a newborn and instant noodles.”
“I did not leave her helpless.”
“You canceled the nurse.”
“She was expensive.”
“I prepaid her visits.”
Eleanor went still.
David saw it.
“You knew that.”
His mother looked away.
“The girl needs to learn how to be a mother.”
David stared.
“The girl?”
“Maya.”
“She is my wife.”
“And I spent the first week listening to her complain.”
“About pain?”
“About everything.”
David’s anger sharpened.
“She had emergency surgery.”
“Women have babies every day.”
That sentence told him more than he wanted.
Then Eleanor changed strategy.
“She told us to go.”
David froze.
“What?”
“She said she wanted privacy.”
“Maya?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Tuesday.”
David had the camera footage.
Tuesday at 6:42 p.m., Eleanor told Maya:
You need to stop crying every time the baby cries. Mark and I cannot sit here forever.
Maya replied:
I’m sorry. I’m trying.
No request for privacy.
No invitation to leave.
Eleanor had forgotten the cameras again.
David looked at his mother.
“You’re lying.”
Her face changed.
Then she said something worse.
“I was protecting you.”
May you like
“From what?”
“From seeing what she’s really like.”
