A Loss No One Could See
Six weeks earlier, Maya had given birth at St. Anne’s Medical Center. Her daughter, Lily, arrived fragile and struggling. The doctors chose their words carefully, gentle and measured, unwilling to promise hope they couldn’t deliver.
Maya had held her child for only a brief moment.
Her body, though, hadn’t understood the goodbye.
Milk still came every morning, a cruel reminder of arms left empty. Maya returned to work because she had no alternative. Funeral bills waited. Her mother in Ohio needed support. Grief had to be swallowed before each shift began.
Cleaning the home of a family surrounded by luxury but starved of love felt like both punishment and irony.
