Maya kept her hand on the door handle and looked back into the apartment. The crib was partially visible through the bedroom doorway. For one final second, the choice was still in front of her.
She could knock on Mrs. Linda’s door.
She could call her mother.
She could admit that she was drowning and needed help.
But asking for help would have meant being honest.
And Maya wanted freedom without judgment.
So she closed the door.
The click of the lock was a sound she would remember for the rest of her life.
At the lake house, she became the girl she had missed.
She laughed too loudly. She danced barefoot on the wooden deck. She let them film her beneath the hanging lights. When someone said, “Maya, you look alive again,” she smiled as if that was exactly what she had come there to prove.
