Chapter 4 - Glass and Steel
The visitation room at the Metropolitan Correctional Center smelled of industrial bleach, stale sweat, and despair. Fluorescent lights buzzed harshly overhead.
David sat behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass, wearing an oversized orange jumpsuit. The sleek, arrogant executive who had walked off a yacht two weeks ago was completely gone. His hair was messy, his eyes were bloodshot and dark-circled, and his shoulders were slouched in defeat.
The heavy metal door opened, and Maya walked in.
She wore a simple dark grey sweater and carried no bag, no phone, no notes. She sat down smoothly on the metal stool on her side of the glass and picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver.
David frantically grabbed his receiver, pressing it hard against his ear. His hand was trembling so violently he nearly dropped it.
"Maya!" he gasped, his voice crackling through the cheap speaker. "Maya, thank God! God, Maya, you have to help me! You have to talk to the federal prosecutor! Tell them it was a mistake! Tell them you authorized those transfers! Please, Maya, they're treating me like a animal in here!"
Maya sat perfectly still, holding the phone to her ear, watching him with absolute silence. She didn't speak. She didn't cry. She just looked at him as if he were a stranger under a microscope.
"Maya, say something!" David sobbed, slamming his free hand against the glass. "I know you're mad about Julianne! It was a mistake, I swear to God! She meant nothing to me! She was a stupid distraction! I was stressed about work, I wasn't thinking straight! I love you, Maya! I’ve always loved you!"
"You loved money," Maya said, her voice completely flat, resonating with a calm that chilled David to his core. "You loved power. You loved feeling like a god who could break every rule and never face a consequence."
"I was stupid! I admit it!" David cried out, tears cutting clean lines through the dirt on his pale cheeks. "I shouldn't have turned off my phone! But Maya... please, tell me about Lily. The agent said... he said she was gone. Tell me it's a lie. Tell me she's at home with your mother!"
"Why do you care?" Maya asked quietly.
"She's my daughter!" David screamed into the receiver, his voice cracking violently. "She's my little girl!"
"She was your daughter," Maya corrected him softly. "When she was lying in that hospital bed, hooked up to three different IV lines, her fever reaching 105 degrees, she kept looking at the door. Every time a nurse walked in, Lily’s face lit up because she thought it was her daddy coming through the door."
David squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head against the glass, a gut-wrenching sob tearing from his throat.
"She held her little stuffed rabbit," Maya continued, her voice never wavering, forcing every word into his ears like a nail. "And at 3:00 AM, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes and asked, 'Is Daddy mad at me? Is that why he won't answer?'"
"Stop... Maya, please, stop..." David wept, clawing at his orange jumpsuit. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
"I told her you were busy," Maya said. "I lied to our dying child to protect her heart from knowing that her father was on a yacht drinking champagne with another woman. I held her hand as her heart rate monitor flatlined. I stood at her grave in the freezing rain alone. You didn't just abandon me, David. You abandoned her."
"Maya, give me a chance to make it right!" David begged, pressing his face against the glass. "I'll do anything! I'll give you everything! Just get me out of here!"
"You have nothing left to give," Maya said. "The house is gone. The offshore accounts are gone. The company has removed you. Your mistress turned state's evidence against you an hour ago to secure her own immunity."
David froze, his eyes widening in complete betrayal. "Julianne...?"
"She handed over every text message, every record of the expensive gifts you bought her with stolen corporate funds," Maya said coldly. "You sacrificed your child's final moments for a woman who sold you out for a plea deal."
Maya stood up from the stool.
"Maya, wait! Don't leave me!" David beat his fists against the reinforced glass, the sound echoing hollowly in the visitation room. "Maya! Please! I'll die in here!"
Maya held the phone to her mouth one last time.
May you like
"You will live, David," she whispered. "You will live for a very long time, in a small steel cell, with nothing to keep you company except the memory of fifty emergency calls you chose to ignore."
She hung up the phone, placed it back on its cradle, and walked out the door without looking back once.
