Chapter 2 - Fifty Red Calls.
Three weeks earlier, before the agents and the empty mansion and the silver urn, Lily told me she was tired while tying her shoes for school.
It was a Tuesday morning.
Snow pressed against the lower windows of the breakfast room, and Chicago looked colorless beyond the glass.
Lily sat on the bench by the mudroom door with one sneaker untied and her backpack leaning against her knee.
“Mom, my chest feels funny.”
I crouched in front of her.
“What kind of funny?”
She put a small hand against the center of her sweater.
“Like my heart is running even though I'm not.”
I touched her forehead.
She was warm.
Not dangerously hot, but warmer than she should have been.
David walked through the hallway behind us with his phone pressed to his ear.
He was discussing a quarterly report.
I raised one hand to stop him.
He held up a finger without looking at me.
“One second,” he mouthed.
Then he kept walking.
I hated how normal that felt.
Lily had been born with a congenital heart condition that required careful monitoring, but she had done well for years.
Her cardiologist called her stubborn in the best possible way.
She played soccer badly and enthusiastically.
She hated peas.
She collected smooth stones from every place we traveled.
She slept with a stuffed rabbit named Mr. Buttons whose left ear had been repaired so many times that it was mostly thread.
We had spent seven years learning how to live with caution without turning her life into a medical chart.
That morning, caution won.
I called her pediatric cardiology team.
They told me to bring her in.
David ended his call near the kitchen.
“What happened?”
“I'm taking Lily to Northwestern.”
His expression changed for half a second.
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
He looked at his watch.
“I have the Hartwell meeting at nine.”
I stared at him.
“I didn't ask you about the meeting.”
He exhaled.
“Maya, don't start.”
“Your daughter says her chest feels strange.”
“And you're taking her to one of the best hospitals in the country.”
“She may need you.”
He glanced toward Lily.
She was pretending not to listen.
That made my anger sharper.
David lowered his voice.
“I have a company to run.”
“You also have a child.”
His jaw tightened.
“I know that.”
Lily appeared in the doorway with her backpack on.
“It's okay, Dad.”
David smiled at her with immediate relief, as if she had rescued him from an unreasonable demand.
“See?”
I wanted to tell him not to use our daughter's kindness as permission.
Instead, I picked up my coat.
David kissed Lily's forehead.
“Text me what the doctor says, bug.”
She smiled faintly.
“Okay.”
He was gone before I zipped her coat.
At the hospital, everything moved faster than I expected.
Lily's heart rate was too high.
Her oxygen level dipped.
An infection had put unexpected stress on her heart.
Doctors ordered bloodwork, imaging, and continuous monitoring.
By noon, we were admitted.
By evening, we were in the pediatric ICU.
I texted David after every major update.
ADMITTED.
CARDIOLOGY IS CONCERNED.
PLEASE CALL.
WE ARE IN THE ICU NOW.
He responded to the first two messages with thumbs-up reactions.
He did not respond to the third.
At eight that night, he finally called.
I answered before the first ring finished.
“David.”
“How is she?”
His voice sounded distracted.
I could hear restaurant noise behind him.
“She's in the ICU.”
“Right, I saw that.”
“Where are you?”
“Dinner.”
“With who?”
A pause.
“Maya.”
“With Julianne?”
Another pause.
Julianne had entered our lives eight months earlier as David's fitness instructor.
She was twenty-five, bright, ambitious, and practiced at making every person she met feel like the most interesting person in the room.
At first, she trained both of us in our home gym.
Then my schedule became too crowded with Lily's appointments and school events.
Soon Julianne was training David alone.
Then she started attending charity events with his company wellness team.
Then David began mentioning her opinions about everything from food to vacations to marriage.
Julianne thinks couples need more independence.
Julianne says stress is stored in the body.
Julianne says I carry everyone else's emotions.
By winter, I could hear another woman's vocabulary moving into my husband's mouth.
“Yes,” David finally said.
“Julianne is here.”
I closed my eyes.
“Our daughter is in intensive care.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you at dinner with her?”
“Because I had a fourteen-hour day and she was helping me decompress.”
I looked through the glass wall of Lily's room.
She was asleep under a thin blanket with wires crossing her chest.
“You should come here.”
“I'll come in the morning.”
“David.”
“I said I'll come in the morning.”
He did not.
The next day he sent flowers.
The card said: BE BRAVE, BUG. LOVE, DAD.
Lily smiled when she saw them.
“Dad picked lilies because of my name.”
I did not tell her the hospital gift shop receipt in my email showed that his assistant had ordered them.
David came that evening for twenty-three minutes.
He kept his coat on.
He stood at the foot of Lily's bed and asked the attending physician questions that sounded impressive but meant very little.
Then he told Lily he had a business trip coming up.
She frowned.
“Where?”
“Bahamas.”
Her eyes brightened despite the monitors.
“Can I come when I'm better?”
David smiled.
“Absolutely.”
I looked at him.
“What business trip?”
He avoided my eyes.
“We'll talk later.”
We talked in the hallway.
“It is not a business trip,” I said.
He folded his arms.
“It is partly business.”
“With Julianne.”
“With a group.”
“What group?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
I laughed once in disbelief.
“You are planning to leave the country while Lily is in the ICU.”
“She is stable.”
“You don't know that.”
“The doctor just said her numbers improved.”
“The doctor also said she is still critically ill.”
David rubbed his forehead.
“This is exactly why I need to go.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“You make everything catastrophic.”
“Our child is in intensive care.”
“I am talking about us.”
“Then pick a different week to discover yourself.”
He stepped closer.
His voice dropped.
“You have been suffocating me for years.”
The words were so cruel and so rehearsed that I knew he had said them somewhere else first.
Probably to Julianne.
Maybe she had nodded with those sympathetic eyes and told him he deserved boundaries.
I looked through the glass toward Lily.
“If you leave now, you will remember this decision for the rest of your life.”
David's face hardened.
“Don't threaten me.”
“That isn't a threat.”
I pointed toward our daughter.
“That is reality.”
He left for the Bahamas forty-eight hours later.
Lily asked why he had not said goodbye in person.
I lied.
“His flight changed.”
She nodded.
“Did he get my drawing?”
“I sent him a picture.”
The drawing showed three stick figures holding hands beside blue water.
Lily had written OUR NEXT TRIP over the top in purple marker.
David responded with a heart emoji.
That night, Lily's fever climbed.
Her heart rhythm became unstable.
A nurse called for the attending.
Then another doctor came in.
Then two more.
I stood against the wall while machines began alarming.
At 10:14 p.m., I called David.
It rang twice.
Then disconnected.
I called again.
Rejected.
Again.
Rejected.
I texted him.
EMERGENCY.
CALL ME NOW.
No response.
At 10:23, I called again.
At 10:24, again.
At 10:27, twice.
At 10:31, three times.
The ICU fellow asked me to step into the hallway.
I refused until Lily looked at me and whispered, “Mom, I'm scared.”
I went back to her bedside.
I held her hand.
I called David with my free hand.
Rejected.
By midnight I had called nineteen times.
At 12:08 a.m., his text finally arrived.
STOP SUFFOCATING ME WITH YOUR ANXIETY, MAYA.
I'M ON A DIGITAL DETOX TRIP FOR MY MENTAL HEALTH.
DO NOT CONTACT ME FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS.
For several seconds, I could not understand what I was reading.
Then a second message appeared.
I MEAN IT.
I looked at Lily.
She had an oxygen mask over her face.
Her eyes were closed.
I typed three words.
LILY MAY DIE.
The message showed delivered.
No reply came.
I called again.
This time the phone went straight to voicemail.
I kept calling anyway.
Twenty calls.
Twenty-five.
Thirty.
Thirty-seven.
Forty-four.
Fifty.
Every unanswered attempt created a red line on the screen.
Fifty red calls.
Fifty choices.
At 3:17 in the morning, Lily opened her eyes and asked a question I will hear until I die.
“Is Dad coming?”
I looked at the phone in my hand.
Then I looked at my daughter.
May you like
And I lied for the last time.
“He's trying, sweetheart.”
