“Maya,” I called out, keeping my voice low so I would not wake the baby. “It is David. I caught the early flight.”
A latch clicked inside. The door swung back slowly, revealing my wife standing in the dark.
She was wearing her winter coat over her flannel pajamas. Her right hand was pressed flat against her stomach, right over her surgical incision. She looked at me with dry, hollow eyes, her face pale under the faint light from the exit sign behind me.
“The heat went out yesterday,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper.
I stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind me. The air inside the apartment was so cold my breath formed a faint white mist. It was freezing, colder than the street outside.
“Where is my mother?” I asked. “Where is Eleanor?”
Maya did not answer. She turned and walked slowly back toward the bedroom, her steps short and guarded, her hand never leaving her side.
