POV: Maya
"He called me," Priya said, not looking up from her grading. "Julian Croft called me. He wanted to know if you were okay."
Maya stopped stirring.
The batter was meant for a chocolate cake—smooth, rich, and dark. But it turned out lumpy. The milk was too cold, the butter was too soft, and everything went wrong.
She had been baking for two hours, and the kitchen was messy. There was flour on the counter, sugar on the floor, and broken eggs in the sink.
Priya sat at the kitchen table. Her pink-tipped curls were pulled back in a messy bun. Her tortoiseshell glasses were sliding down her nose. She was grading essays—stack of them, red pen in hand, the margins filled with notes.
Asha was at the stove. She was thirty-three, a pediatric surgeon at NYU Langone, precise and dry-witte
