“Aimee!” Mayra said as she came out of the living room. She reached around me and pushed the door back a little wider. My shirt was tied up in a little knot at her side to keep it from falling off of her, and her hair was still a disaster. I fought with the desire to fix it, but it would only bring attention to the fact, and Aimee might not notice otherwise. “What are you doing here?”
Aimee looked back and forth between Mayra and me for a moment and then focused on me.
“I know it was you,” she said quietly. “I know you left me the money.”
~oOo~
I fixed drinks for the three of us—Coke for Mayra and me and a Sprite for Aimee since she didn’t want to drink anything with caffeine in it. Aimee’s drink went on the side table next to the chair where, a few minutes ago, Mayra and I had been naked. It was really, really hard not to think about that, but I focused on setting the other two drinks in their usual spots on the coffee table before I sat on the couch. Mayra and Aimee were already talking.
Apparently, using Dr. Harris in order to remain anonymous was a pretty bad idea. As soon as Scott looked up the number and saw where it came from, Aimee remembered a conversation with Mayra about my sister.
“I checked,” Aimee said, “and I found a girl with the last name of Rohan at the same hospital. I knew it had to be your sister.”
Mayra had her head in her hands, and she kept looking up at me. I knew what she was doing. She was waiting for me to freak out, but I couldn’t blame her. I was kind of waiting for it myself.
“You said no one would know,” I reminded Mayra. Aimee’s words felt like they were crashing down over my head, and I could feel the tension flowing over me from my scalp to my toes. “You said Dr. Harris would keep anyone from knowing.”
“I wasn’t expecting them to go all NCIS on me,” Mayra said. She glanced at Aimee out of the corner of her eye.
“You’re the ones who have been giving money away all over town,” Aimee said. “Why?”
“I don’t want it,” I said emphatically. My fingers twisted around each other, untwisted, and then twisted up again. I tapped my index fingertips together and then moved on to the other fingers, tapping each one in turn.
“I knew how worried you were,” Mayra said. “With the baby coming and money being so tight, it just made sense to give most of it to you. We donated to the autism center for Megan’s—”
“Mayra!” I whispered under my breath. I didn’t want to give away any more than we had to.
“She’s going to figure it out anyway,” Mayra said with a roll of her eyes. “Matthew didn’t want to deal with it all, and he didn’t want the attention.”
“But it would help you and your family, too,” Aimee insisted. “I’m sure they have needs as well.”
I shook my head.
“It’s so much,” Aimee said. “We can all share it.”
“Not me,” I replied. “I don’t want it.”
“You have to!” Aimee shook her head rapidly. “I can’t take this from you, knowing you aren’t even saving any for yourself.”
“I don’t want it!” I yelled. As I pulled my feet up off the floor and brought my knees to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them. Mayra reached over and rested her hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off. This was exactly what I didn’t want—I didn’t want to have to think about the money ever again, and here we all were talking about it some more. “Just take it and don’t say anything else!”
“But, Matthew, your own family—”
“No!” I moaned as I hid my head between my knees and started to shake. Giving it to anyone in my family was the same as keeping it for myself. I would always have to be involved in the decision-making and planning, which is exactly what I did not want.
“Matthew…it’s okay,” Mayra said. She had moved closer to me on the couch but wasn’t trying to touch me.
“I don’t understand,” Aimee whispered, and I could hear the stress in her voice.
“It just won’t work for him, Aimee,” Mayra said quietly. “That’s why giving it away was the perfect answer. I didn’t think you would figure out where it came from, and I knew you would be responsible with it—use it for the baby and school for you and Scott. I knew you would have your dad help you figure it out and not do anything stupid. We’re saving some to pay for school, but we won’t be spending any of it on us. If we did, people would figure it out. Giving half of it to you means you wouldn’t have to put your whole life on hold, and Matthew and I could just move on the way we had already planned.”
There was a long silence, which I used to try to keep myself from totally falling apart. None of this was working like it was supposed to, and what I thought was over and done with had suddenly made itself a huge part of my life again in a matter of minutes. I was shaking so badly, I could hardly even hear anything around me anymore.
“Is it really that hard for you?” Aimee asked. When I glanced at her, her eyes were wide and sympathetic.
I could only nod in response.
“All right,” she whispered and then spoke a little louder. “We’ll keep it.”