“How long have you all been planning this?” Maya asked, her voice trembling with quiet fury.
Silence filled the room.
“How long?!”
Eleanor kept her eyes fixed on the floor.
It was Jessica who answered, her voice dripping with entitlement: “Since we found out you were having triplets.”
A cold shiver ran down Maya’s spine as every piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Daniel’s sudden, intrusive questions over the past few months about whether she and David could financially afford three babies. Jessica’s passive-aggressive comments. Eleanor’s bizarre phone calls asking if they had decided who the godparents for each individual baby would be.
They weren’t making a spontaneous suggestion.
They had spent months nurturing the twisted belief that one of her children belonged to them.
“Get out,” Maya commanded. “All of you. Get out of my room.”
Richard let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “You aren’t in a rational state of mind to be making decisions right after surgery.”
“The decision is made. Leave.”
“You’ll thank us for this later,” Richard sneered.
Eleanor tried to intervene, adopting a soothing, motherly tone. “Maya, sweetie, just listen to your brother. They just want to build a family.”
“I just built mine!” Maya shouted.
Then, Richard did something that severed his relationship with his daughter forever.
He slid his hands under the swaddled newborn in the bassinet and lifted the tiny baby completely out of the crib.
Maya’s heart stopped. “Put him back! Give him to me!”