The baby cried at night, and Maya began to hate the sound before she even hated herself for hating it. She fed him with one hand while scrolling through photos of her friends under colorful lights on her phone. She changed him while messages appeared on the screen asking where she had gone, why she never went out anymore, why she had become so boring.
Sometimes she looked at the baby and whispered:
“You took everything away from me.”
He would only look back at her, blinking.
He had taken nothing from her.
He had simply arrived.
Mrs. Linda, the elderly woman who lived across the hall, noticed the changes before anyone else did. She noticed that the baby cried for too long. She noticed Maya leaving with her hair perfectly styled and returning hours later with her heels in her hands. She noticed the empty look in Maya’s eyes every time someone called her “mother.”
One evening, Mrs. Linda stopped her in the hallway.
Maya was wearing a black dress and holding a small purse. Her lipstick was bright. Her perfume filled the narrow corridor.
“Maya,” Mrs. Linda said cautiously, “who is with the baby?”
