I pulled the folded piece of thick cream paper from my coat pocket and unfolded it under the harsh light of the corridor shining through the window. It was my mother’s heavy stationery, the elegant cursive written in black ink with her expensive fountain pen.
The words were brief and sharp: “Maya, please do not play the victim. We have gone to give you some space. Eleanor.”
My mother had raised me to believe in the absolute sanctity of family, in the duty we owed to one another above all else. Now, looking at my wife’s hollow cheeks, I felt the first hairline crack in everything I had believed about Eleanor.
Why would she write something so deliberate, so cold, to a woman who had just undergone major abdominal surgery and could barely stand?
I folded the paper back up, the sharp crease clicking under my thumb as I slid it back into my pocket.
