Chapter 7: Brandon at the Door
He arrived at her apartment on Sunday evening, forty minutes after Tyler's flight landed.
Tyler ran through the front door and into Maya's arms before Brandon had even reached the top of the stairs.
She held her son for a long time.
He was still wearing his Miami wristband from the hotel pool, a plastic orange thing he'd probably been given on the first day.
She didn't say anything.
She just held him.
Tyler pulled back first.
"Mom, I found a shell on the beach.
A real one.
It has a spiral."
"I want to see it."
"It's in my bag." He was already pulling away toward his room.
"I'll get it."
Then it was just Maya and Brandon in the hallway.
Brandon looked the way people look when they have rehearsed something and then arrived and found the version they rehearsed was wrong.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
She stepped back.
He came in.
She didn't offer him anything.
He stood in the middle of the room, looking at the space like he was trying to remember it.
"I didn't know about the declaration," he said.
"Brandon."
"I'm serious, Maya.
I didn't know she planned to tell the court Tyler said—" He stopped.
"I would never have agreed to that."
"You signed the document."
"I signed a modification agreement.
She told me it was—" He stopped again.
Looked at the floor.
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like you signed a document that was used to try to take Tyler to another state without my knowledge."
He didn't argue.
That, at least, was honest.
"What did she tell you about me?" Maya asked.
"What was her version?"
He was quiet for a moment.
Then: "She said you were unstable.
That Tyler had been telling her things.
That if I didn't act now, you might take him somewhere I couldn't find him." He looked up.
"I believed her."
"You believed her over me."
"She showed me things, Maya.
Messages she said were yours.
Photos.
A timeline." He shook his head.
"I don't know now if any of it was real."
Maya looked at him.
"She manufactured it.
The judge saw it.
Your attorney saw it.
Everyone in that courtroom saw it."
Brandon sat down without being invited.
He put his hands on his knees and looked at them.
"I know," he said.
"My attorney told me what happened in the hearing.
All of it." A pause.
"I think Vanessa may have done this to another family.
Before us."
Maya went still.
"What?"
"Something her attorney said before I fired him.
He mentioned a prior matter.
He wouldn't give me details." Brandon looked at her.
"I'm looking into it."
From the hallway came the sound of Tyler's feet on the floor, running back.
He appeared in the doorway holding a small spiral shell, white with a pale pink interior.
"See?" he said, holding it up.
Maya crossed the room and took it from him.
She turned it in her hands.
"It's perfect," she said.
Tyler looked between them.
The way children look when they're reading a room but pretending they aren't.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
"Yes," Maya said.
She meant it for him.
"Go put your bag in your room.
I'll come help you unpack."
He accepted that and disappeared back down the hall.
Maya turned to Brandon.
May you like
"You said prior matter," she said.
"Tell me everything you know."
