The Hands of God
1642 Words
The condo was larger than the apartment.
Brighter.
Quieter.
Colder.
In the beginning, Maya had believed space would save them.
She thought maybe love had simply suffocated in the smaller place — that maybe it needed high ceilings and polished floors and sunlight pouring in through wide glass windows.
But distance does not shrink inside larger rooms.
It echoes.
And Calvin had begun to echo differently.
He no longer slammed doors or raised his voice. That version of him almost felt easier to understand. Anger had shape. Anger had sound.
This new Calvin was calm.
Detached.
He moved through the condo like a man who lived alone — like Maya was furniture he occasionally remembered to step around.
He still spoke to her.
But it felt procedural.
“Did you take your meds?”
“What’s for dinner?”
“I’ll be late.”
“Don’t wait up.”
No softness.
No curiosity.
No touch.
And somehow that hurt more.
Her health had worsened since the move.
Perhaps it was the stress.
Perhaps it was the silence.
The chest pains had become more frequent — sharp, spreading aches that settled between her ribs like a weight. Her breathing sometimes felt like inhaling through cloth. On bad mornings, she would sit at the edge of the bed and wait for the dizziness to pass before standing.
Calvin noticed.
But not the way she hoped he would.
“You can’t keep living like this,” he said one evening while scrolling on his phone. “You barely do anything. I’m the one running errands, picking up food, going downstairs, doing everything.”
The words weren’t shouted.
They were tired.
As if she were an inconvenience he had grown weary of carrying.
Maya looked down at her hands.
“I’m trying,” she said quietly.
He sighed — not cruelly, just impatiently.
“Try harder.”
She didn’t ask how.
She didn’t ask what “harder” looked like when breathing itself sometimes felt like labor.
Instead, she swallowed the shame.
Maybe she was failing him.
Maybe love meant not being a burden.
He had begun attending every funeral.
Every single one.
If someone in church mentioned a distant relative, Calvin would mark the date.
If a member’s coworker’s uncle passed away, he found out.
If there was a service three hours away, he volunteered to drive.
Unless he didn’t hear of it — he attended.
He spoke of duty.
Of compassion.
Of community.
Maya used to attend church meetings. She used to sit beside him. She used to sing.
But now she could barely manage the stairs some days. The thought of long services and crowded halls overwhelmed her body before she even tried.
So Calvin went alone.
And he went seriously.
He dressed sharply. Left early. Returned late. Spoke about the sermons with quiet pride.
Sometimes Maya wondered if he preferred the version of himself outside the condo — the reliable one, the visible one, the one who was needed.
Inside, she was the only one who needed him.
And that seemed to exhaust him.
The Saturday of the Boston funeral began before dawn.
The church member’s father had passed away. The service was out of state. Departure time: 3:00 a.m. sharp. Meeting point: 1:00 a.m.
Calvin laid out his clothes the night before.
Pressed shirt.
Dark trousers.
Polished shoes.
Maya lay in bed, watching him move.
Her chest had been tight since evening. She had taken her medication twice. It hadn’t helped. The ache had grown deeper, radiating toward her back. Each breath felt incomplete, like her lungs refused to expand fully.
By midnight, her heart was pounding in irregular bursts.
By 12:30, she could barely sit upright.
Calvin was adjusting his tie in the mirror when she tried to speak.
Her voice came out thin.
“Calvin…”
He turned halfway. “Hmm?”
“I… don’t feel well.”
He nodded absently. “Take another pill.”
“I did.”
He looked at the clock.
12:47 a.m.
“I’m serious,” she whispered, her fingers gripping the sheets. “I’m really not okay.”
There was something in her voice then — something fragile. Something afraid.
She gathered the little strength she had.
“Please… can you skip this one? I feel like something is wrong. I’m scared.”
He stared at her for a moment.
And what she searched for — what she desperately searched for — was hesitation.
Concern.
Conflict.
Instead, his expression hardened slightly.
“If I keep following your condition,” he said slowly, “I’ll be stuck in one place. I won’t move forward.”
The words landed softly.
But they crushed.
Stuck.
As if she were gravity.
As if loving her was weight.
As if staying beside her was regression.
Maya opened her mouth to respond.
But the room tilted.
The ceiling blurred.
And then—
Nothing.
She did not hear herself fall.
She did not feel the silence that followed.
Calvin stared at her still body for a moment.
He walked to the bed.
Touched her shoulder lightly.
“Maya?”
No response.
He stood there.
Paused.
Then he closed his eyes briefly.
“God, please take care of her,” he murmured.
He grabbed his jacket.
And left.
The door shut quietly behind him.
Eight hours.
When Maya returned to consciousness, it did not feel like waking.
It felt like surfacing from deep water.
Her body was heavy. Her limbs foreign. Her mouth dry.
The sunlight pouring through the large windows told her it was morning — maybe late morning.
For a moment, she didn’t remember.
Then she turned her head.
Empty.
The condo was silent.
Too silent.
Her heart beat weakly, but steadily now.
She tried to sit up.
The movement made her dizzy.
She paused.
Waited.
Breathed.
Slowly, she swung her legs off the bed and stood.
Her knees trembled.
She steadied herself against the wall.
Eight hours alone.
If she had not woken up?
The thought came softly.
No one would have known.
She walked to the kitchen in small steps.
The brightness of the condo felt different now.
Less hopeful.
More indifferent.
She boiled water.
Made tea.
Her hands shook as she held the mug.
Before drinking, she closed her eyes.
“Thank you, Lord,” she whispered. “For giving me another chance. For bringing me back.”
Resurrecting her.
It felt like resurrection.
She sipped slowly.
Each swallow grounding her further into the present.
Then she returned to the bed and lay down.
Not to sleep.
Just to exist.
Her phone vibrated around noon.
A text from Calvin.
Tatiana was asking of you. I told her I’m at a funeral. She said she couldn’t reach you. You should reach out.
No “How are you?”
No “Are you okay?”
Just information.
Maya stared at the message.
Then she opened her call log.
Missed calls.
Tatiana.
Adela.
Tatiana again.
Adela again.
Her chest tightened — not from illness this time.
From the realization that other people had been more concerned about her absence than the man who had left her unconscious.
She called Tatiana first.
“Hello? Maya? Oh my God, are you okay? We’ve been trying to reach you!”
Maya straightened her voice.
“I’m okay,” she said softly. “I wasn’t feeling well. I was resting.”
“You scared us.”
“I’m fine.”
She said it so many times it began to sound rehearsed.
She called Adela next.
The same questions.
The same reassurances.
By the time she ended the calls, she was exhausted from pretending to be stable.
Around 4 p.m., hunger arrived suddenly.
Sharp. Demanding.
She hadn’t eaten since the previous evening.
She opened the delivery app.
The options blurred on the screen.
Her head spun.
Standing felt unsafe.
Going downstairs felt impossible.
She stared at the couch.
Then at the door.
Then back at her phone.
Finally, she typed.
Can you please bring food on your way back? I’m very weak.
She stared at the message before sending it.
It felt humiliating to ask.
She pressed send anyway.
Calvin returned at 7 p.m.
The door opened.
He stepped inside, smelling faintly of outside air and cologne.
He carried a takeout bag.
He looked… normal.
Not rushed.
Not shaken.
Not like a man who had left someone unconscious that morning.
He handed her the food.
“You couldn’t just go downstairs?” he asked casually. “There’s a*****e right there.”
Maya looked at him.
Her voice was calm.
“I fainted.”
He shrugged slightly.
“You faint sometimes.”
“You left me.”
“I prayed.”
She blinked.
“I could have died.”
He exhaled, mildly irritated now.
“You wouldn’t have died. I left you in God’s hands.”
The sentence hung between them.
Not cruel.
Certain.
As if that settled it.
Maya opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
What argument exists against divine delegation?
She had no language for that.
She simply nodded.
A small, exhausted nod.
They ate in silence.
Later, they lay in the same bed.
But something irreversible had happened.
It wasn’t just that he left.
It was that he believed he was justified.
That faith had replaced responsibility.
That prayer had replaced presence.
Maya stared at the ceiling.
Her body still weak.
Her chest still sore.
But the greater ache was elsewhere now.
It was the understanding.
If she disappeared —
Truly disappeared —
He would attend her funeral.
On time.
Well dressed.
And speak beautifully.
And everyone would call him devoted.
A single tear slid quietly into her hair.
She did not wipe it away.
The condo was large.
Bright.
Silent.
And for the first time,
She understood that being alone next to someone
Is lonelier than being alone by yourself.
- Writer
