“Have you spoken to her doctor?”
“No.”
“Have you seen her?”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“I know.”
There was shame in her voice, but also something else—fear.
“She asked me not to tell anyone,” Maya said. “She said the people caring for her would stop helping if they thought I had a wealthy husband.”
“Who are the people caring for her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve been sending money to people you don’t know?”
“To an account she gave me.”
“What is the name on the account?”
Maya looked at me.
“Hudson Family Consulting.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“That’s the same company my mother has been paying.”
Maya’s expression changed from guilt to confusion.
“What?”
“There are transfers from the family account. Nine hundred dollars at a time.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Did you tell my mother?”
“No.”
“Did she know about your mother contacting you?”
“I don’t think so.”
I opened my phone and called Daniel.
He answered immediately.
“I was about to call you,” he said.
“What did you find?”
“Hudson Family Consulting is not a medical provider. It was registered sixteen months ago in Delaware. The listed manager is a man named Samuel Reeves.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Maybe not. But your mother does.”
“How?”
“Samuel Reeves was your father’s business partner.”
The hospital room seemed to tilt.
“My father didn’t have a business partner.”
“He did, according to the corporate records. They owned a small property company together before your father died.”
I remembered an office above a hardware store. The smell of dust and coffee. My father letting me stamp envelopes while he worked.
I had been twelve when he died.
My mother told us the business had failed.
“What does this have to do with Maya’s mother?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Daniel said. “But there’s more. Hudson Family Consulting was created using an address connected to an old storage facility in Queens.”
“So?”
“So that same address appears on a document filed after your father’s death.”
“What document?”
“A change of beneficiary form.”
My mouth went dry.
“For what?”
“A life insurance policy.”
I lowered myself into the chair beside Maya’s bed.
Daniel continued, his voice measured.
“The original beneficiary was your mother. The amended beneficiary was someone named Marisol Santos.”
Maya sat upright despite the pain.
“My mother’s name is Marisol Santos.”
Neither of us spoke.
Daniel waited.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I’m saying your father changed the beneficiary of a life insurance policy six weeks before he died. I’m also saying the policy was never paid to Marisol Santos because, according to the insurer, she could not be located.”
Maya covered her mouth.
“David,” Daniel said, “there is one more thing.”
I gripped the phone.
“The change-of-beneficiary form included a handwritten note requesting that the insurer contact Marisol regarding a child.”
I looked at Maya.
Her face had gone pale again.
“What child?” I asked.
Daniel took a breath.
“The note did not give a name. It only said, ‘our daughter.’”
The room became completely still.
Maya stared at me, her hand trembling over the blanket.
“My father died when I was twelve,” I whispered.
“I know,” she said.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-one.”
I was thirty-six.
Five years apart.
Old memories began surfacing in broken pieces—my father leaving on unexplained trips, my mother burning letters in the fireplace after his funeral, the way she had reacted the first time I brought Maya home.
She had dropped a glass.
At the time, she said it slipped.
Now I remembered how she stared at Maya’s face.
Not with dislike.
With recognition.
My phone rang.
An unknown number.
