CHAPTER 4
A day or so later Truce coerced me into staying up past my bedtime to watch one of her favorite movie stars, Corey Garrison, being interviewed on Super Late. I must have dosed off sometime after the interview because I found myself still on the couch but with a blanket around me and I was alone. Trucy must have headed into her bed after tucking me in.
Then I heard what must have woken me. It was the creaky floorboard in the office's hallway. It had been my nemesis when I would sneak home after spending the better part of the night upstairs with Vera back when we were first going out, or "staying in" as she preferred to call it.
Someone's up. I peaked over the back of the couch thinking it might be Phoenix sneaking some of that liquor he had stashed somewhere or even Trucy sneaking out to meet some boy. I was suspicious Vera knew something about Trucy's love life that had not yet been shared with me.
Or it could be any of them just needing to pee. Detective Justice, you're off duty you can relax. But Trucy is way too young to be sneaking around. If it's her I need to tell her it's not ok.
But as the figure creeped through the office I saw that the form was unmistakably Maya. She tiptoed past me unaware of my presence and slipped out the door of the office.
Now, I believe that everybody deserves a little privacy, but at two-thirty in the morning I don't let anyone alone wander outside in their pajamas. It's just a bad idea. So I tiptoed behind her and I found her outside kneeling by the hedges at the front of the office building violently vomiting. She must have come out here so none of us would hear her.
And anybody passing by would figure she was some drunk who had partied too hard.
The light from the streetlamp made the sweat glisten on her brow. Her hands curled the way Vera's do when she has a panic attack. She sounded like she was trying to turn herself inside out. But then with one final gut wrench she was done and collapsed upon the ground. I started to run towards her, but stopped as she abruptly sat up and took a few deep breaths to ease her panting. She pulled her feet under her in a cross-legged position and closed her eyes as though in meditation. Then she smiled and rose and tiptoed back into the house.
I ducked into the shadow so she never knew I had seen her, but I had. And what my logic driven mind had seen led me to believe that her movements were calculated as though they were routine.
I thought she wasn't throwing up anymore, but I bet she's doing this every night!
I scanned my mental database for any other pregnant women I had experience with that I could compare her to. Should she be puking this much and that violently? Unfortunately, I had very little experience with women, much less pregnant ones.
There had been a classmate of mine in high school who got pregnant, but I didn't know much about her other than that I felt sorry for how she got treated by everybody. As if she were the only student at the school having sex. Give me a break! Then there were a few women at the courthouse and the police department. I remembered them all being tired and a few of them had to shorten their hours on their feet or have a stool to rest their feet on. Some of them were super bubbly and some of them were grouchy, though no more than Ema was on a good day. But I had no idea how much they had been throwing up or nauseous. This just didn't seem normal to me.
Phoenix, your spawn is killing her. Is this the real reason you have no offspring? Did all that grape juice make your kid toxic or something?
Up until this point I thought that maybe Maya was milking this situation a little as I had seen plenty of other pregnant women working and caring for themselves and their other kids just fine, but seeing her body retching like that reminded me of when I got food poisoning from the courthouse cafeteria and I had been so sick I had wanted to die. If she as feeling like that every night no wonder she was wiped out.
She needs to tell Phoenix. Maybe I'm wrong and all this is normal, but either way she shouldn't be sneaking out here to throw up. It isn't safe. I gotta convince her to tell him. Now.
The test was soon, only the day after tomorrow, but as far as I was concerned it was time to come clean.
~xxxx~
The next day Trucy and Phoenix were in the office with me and Maya so I had to wait quite a while to get a chance to talk to her about my worries. Maya said she wanted to help me out so I gave her some files to put away for me but my sloppy handwriting prevented her from actually being much help because she couldn't figure out what cases any of the files were for. Eventually, Phoenix went out to get some groceries and Trucy went out to work on a school project leaving Maya and I in a position to converse about the baby and I told her it was ok to give up on organizing my papers as the situation was probably hopeless anyways. So she made herself a cup of peppermint tea and plopped into Phoenix's office chair to drink it while staring off into space.
"Maya, this is getting ridiculous. Phoenix knows something's not right with you. A few days ago he was asking me about it."
Maya shook her head. "Polly, I know what I'm doing. He can't handle it right now and being pregnant isn't that big a deal otherwise none of us would be here. I'll survive."
I dunno, Maya. You seem a little sicker than those books made it out like you should be, but then again what do I know? I was only reading over your shoulder, after all, but I'm still worried about you. Nick should know. If you were fine then it'd be one thing, but you're really weak. I know you are. You don't need to be ashamed that this baby is kicking your butt. Just blame Phoenix. I know you're good at that.
"Nick is worried about you and letting his imagination run wild is probably worse than just telling him the truth and getting it over with. I'm coming really close to telling him myself."
"No, Polly! You promised."
I walked over to her and spun the chair so she faced me. I could tell she was upset. Her and Nick shared everything. Lying to him had to be tearing her up on the inside. I was having a hard enough time concealing the truth from Trucy and we were just friends.
I knelt in front of her and took her hand. "Maya?"
I looked into her eyes. "Maya, you gotta tell him the truth."
"I…I…" Maya was about to cry. She felt that getting Phoenix's badge back was the most important thing in the world to him, but I knew it wasn't. When I first met him I probably would have thought so, but not after Trucy had told me how Mr. Wright a man she had just met had invited her to live with him and become his daughter after her biological father vanished. He immediately did what he had to do to care for her, swallowing his pride and doing whatever it took to make money with which to support her. He fought the Department of Child Safety for the right to be able to adopt her. He scrounged to buy her the magic panties she wanted so badly. He worked to get her accepted into a special performing arts alternative school.
This was not a man whose career was as important to him as the people he loved and he hadn't even had nine months to get used to the idea of being a father with Trucy. He had become her daddy overnight.
But I understood why Maya believed the exam was so important. She and I could both sense the bittersweetness when he praised my victories, the longing in his eyes when his gaze fell upon my shiny golden badge. Yet, I also knew that no amount of support or sacrifice she had given him in his lawyer days equaled what she was going through for him right now. My mouth opened to find a delicate way of explaining to her that she needed to quit worrying so much about his stupid career and his pride and instead allow him and her to focus on what was most important right now her health and the baby's health.
"Maya, I think Nick-"
"Hi, am I interrupting something?" Phoenix had entered the office without either of us hearing it. I leapt to my feet dropping Maya's hand like it was a hot potato.
Phoenix handed Maya a flower. It was some kind of a daisy-like bloom. "For you."
"Oh, thanks, Nick! No, you haven't missed anything. Polly and I were just having a discussion about how best to file these briefs. I say they should go alphabetically and Polly thinks they should go chronologically."
This was the most smoothly executed lie Maya had crafted yet. I was impressed. My bracelet had squeezed me, of course, but not that badly.
"I'll go put this in some water. Thanks, Nick!" and Maya trotted off to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Phoenix looked lost for a moment. Sad almost.
Don't worry. She'll tell you tomorrow. She's only doing it because she loves you more than anything else in the whole world even her own sanity…and mine.
Abruptly Phoenix's expression changed and he seemed like his usual self. He smiled at me and said, "You've been working so hard how about you and Trucy take a day off and go have some fun. Get away from the office for awhile."
That sounds great. I could use a break…but wait what is Maya doing?Maya was standing behind Phoenix's back waving her arms and shaking her head in a sign that I was to find some excuse for not leaving her alone.
"You know, Phoenix, I'd love to, but Trucy and I have been talking about taking a day trip to the water park in Landover and neither one of us have saved up enough money yet. So I think we'll wait until we do. I don't want to disappoint Trucy. I promised her I'd take her as a reward for finding that missing knitting needle."
"What are you talking about? I'm not missing any of my knitting stuff. I just got bored with it." Maya said walking up to Nick and putting her arm around him, a contented smile upon her lips.
"Not yours. In our last case, Frederick Wentworth was stabbed by a knitting needle and good ole Truce found it. In a haystack, no less."
Maya probably thought I was making this up, but it was the honest to God truth. Trucy, the world's most amazing assistant, had dug through an entire haystack looking for the damned thing while I distracted Ema with stupid questions.
It was weird. Ema hadn't acted at all surprised when I wasted a bunch of her time presenting her with meaningless crap and asking her about it. Like I'm in the habit of doing that or something…
Phoenix whistled. "Trucy did that? She didn't even tell me…"
"Yup. You should take her out for ice cream. She's missing spending time with you."
Phoenix assumed his guilty expression and brandished his cell phone from his pocket. "That's a good idea. I'll meet her on her way back from school. We need a little father daughter time. Maya, you don't mind do you?"
"No, of course not Nick. I never mind hanging out with Apollo."
I smiled. Maya and I had once again dodged his company and his questions.
In a little over twenty-four hours she'll tell him and then Maya will be all his proble…er blessing.
