Chapter 9 - Elena Left Maya a Recording
Marcus opened a safe he had avoided for years.
Inside were Elena’s personal things.
Letters.
Photographs.
A small flash drive.
Before her death, Elena had recorded several messages while recovering
in the hospital.
Marcus had never shown them to Maya because she was so young.
Now he played one.
Elena appeared on screen, pale but smiling.
“Hi, bug.”
Maya covered her mouth.
Her mother continued.
“If Daddy shows you this someday, I need you to know something. There is
nowhere I would rather be than home with you.”
Maya began crying.
Marcus did too.
Elena talked about Maya’s laugh.
Her stubbornness.
Her love of strawberry pancakes.
Then:
“If I don’t get to watch you grow up, that is something being taken from
me. It is never something I chose.”
Maya climbed into Marcus’s lap.
The lie Vanessa had planted began to break.
Not completely.
May you like
Children carried words deeply.
But now Maya had her mother’s own voice to fight them with.
