“You should quit your job,” she said, setting the dish on our counter like she was laying down a verdict. “Move into the house with us. I’ll take care of everything—the nursery, the meals, the doctor’s appointments. A baby needs its mother full-time.”
I hesitated. I’d worked six years to become a senior financial analyst. I had clients who trusted me. A 401(k) I’d been building since I was 23. A sense of identity that existed outside of anyone else’s expectations.
“It’s temporary,” Derek said. “Just until the baby’s six months old. Mom’s right. You need rest. And my salary covers everything anyway.”
Six months. That was the agreement. I would take six months to recover, to bond with my daughter, to figure out the next chapter. Judith smiled when I finally nodded.
“You’re finally understanding what it means to be a mother,” she said. “A real mother puts her family first.”
That was 14 months ago. No one has mentioned me going back to work since, and somehow I stopped asking.
The car disappeared in January. Lily was four months old. She had her two-month vaccines coming up, a pediatric appointment I’d scheduled three weeks in advance at Columbus Children’s on the east side, a 20-minute drive from Judith’s house in Upper Arlington. The morning of the appointment, I walked into the garage to find an empty space where my Honda Accord should have been.
“Oh, I borrowed it,” Judith said when I found her in the kitchen. She didn’t look up from her crossword puzzle. “My Lincoln is in the shop just for a few days, dear.”
“But Lily has a doctor’s appointment today at 10:30.”
“Reschedule it.” She filled in another word. “Babies don’t need to be on such rigid schedules. You’re too anxious, Maya. It’s not healthy.”
I rescheduled the appointment. I told myself it was just a few days. A few days became a week. A week became a month. By March, I’d stopped asking about the car altogether because every time I brought it up, Judith had a new reason. The Lincoln was still being repaired. She needed the Honda to run errands for the church. Her niece Brittany was visiting from Cincinnati and needed transportation.
In April, I saw Brittany posting Instagram photos from my car—my Honda Accord with the dent in the rear bumper from when I’d backed into a mailbox two years ago—parked outside a restaurant in the Short North.
“The car is still here,” Derek said when I showed him the photos. “It’s not like it’s gone. You’re making this into a bigger deal than it needs to be.”
I still have the title in my wallet. “Maya Watson Wheeler,” printed in black ink on Ohio BMV letterhead. My name, my car, but I haven’t driven it in ten months.
I don’t know exactly when the Life360 app appeared on my phone. I found it in June, buried in a folder of apps I never opened. The icon was small, a green circle with a white location pin. When I tapped it, a map loaded showing my exact position: 4847 Riverside Lane, Upper Arlington, OH. Judith’s house. My prison.
“It’s for safety,” Judith explained when I asked. Her voice was patient, like she was speaking to a child. “I worry about you and Lily when you’re out. This way, I know you’re safe. Don’t you want me to know you’re safe?”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to say that I was 29 years old, that I’d lived alone in Chicago for four years before meeting Derek, that I didn’t need a tracking app to prove I was a responsible adult. But Derek was standing right there and he said, “It’s not a big deal, Maya. Mom just cares about us.”
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