Chương 3
Madison looked at Ethan.
“Grab your backpack.”
“It’s inside.”
“Go get it.”
He hesitated.
“The tablet?”
“Keep it with you.”
That changed Evelyn’s expression again.
“Give me that.”
Ethan took one step backward.
“It’s mine.”
“You were recording people in my home without permission.”
“It’s outside,” Teresa said.
Evelyn turned on her.
“Excuse me?”
Teresa lifted both hands.
“I’m not taking sides.”
“You just did.”
“No, Evelyn, I clarified geography.”
Under different circumstances Madison might have laughed.
Instead she moved closer to Ethan.
“Don’t delete anything.”
Evelyn’s mouth flattened.
“Madison.”
“What?”
“You don’t want to do this.”
There was something in the sentence that reached beyond the afternoon.
Madison heard it.
So did Helen.
Helen looked at her sister-in-law quickly.
Evelyn corrected herself.
“I mean humiliating this family over a child’s dress.”
Madison’s first impulse was to answer.
Then she decided against it.
Nora needed to leave more than Evelyn needed to lose an argument.
She took Nora’s hand.
The child resisted.
“My presents.”
“We can get them later.”
“My cake.”
The candles were still burning.
One had bent slightly from the heat.
Madison looked at them.
“Do you want to take it?”
Nora stared at the cake, then shook her head.
“No.”
“All right.”
That answer hurt more than Madison expected.
Nora had chosen the cake herself after examining photographs from four bakeries. Vanilla inside, strawberry filling, pale pink frosting, little sugar stars. She had spent a week discussing whether the stars should be yellow or white.
Now she would not touch it.
Madison bent and picked up the severed sash.
Evelyn watched.
“The party does not have to end because you’re upset.”
Three parents looked at her.
One quietly gathered her daughter’s shoes.
Another began collecting a diaper bag.
Evelyn noticed them too.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
The exodus started without anybody announcing it.
People said good-bye to Nora.
Not to Evelyn.
A few tried to hug her. Nora accepted one hug and then hid behind Madison’s leg, so the rest stopped asking.
Ethan returned with his backpack.
His face had lost color.
“I got my charger too.”
“Good.”
He looked at Madison.
“Is Dad coming?”
Madison nearly said, I don’t know.
Instead: “Not here.”
She led both children through the gate.
At the driveway, Nora stopped.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we still have my birthday?”
Madison’s throat tightened.
“Yeah.”
“Today?”
She looked at Ethan.
He shrugged with the solemnity of somebody being asked to vote in Congress.
Madison glanced at the children, her car, the crooked paper crown on the passenger seat, and the house behind them where twenty minutes earlier she had thought her biggest problem was Daniel being late.
“Yeah,” she said. “Today.”
They drove to a grocery store.
It was Nora’s idea.
Madison suggested home, pizza delivery, maybe a movie. Nora wanted a new cake.
Not a beautiful cake.
A grocery-store cake from the refrigerated case with blue frosting flowers and “Happy Birthday” written in icing while they waited.
The bakery employee asked for a name.
“Nora.”
“How old?”
Nora held up six fingers.
The woman smiled.
“Big deal.”
Nora nodded gravely.
Madison stood beside her holding the ruined sash in her purse.
Ethan kept the tablet tucked under his arm.
He had not let go of it since the party.
While the cake was being written on, Madison bought paper plates, candles, ice cream, and a package of rainbow napkins Nora said were ugly but funny.
They ate pizza on the living room floor.
Nora wore an oversized T-shirt because she refused to keep the birthday dress on.
Ethan put six candles into the blue grocery-store cake.
One leaned sideways.
Nora complained.
“That one looks drunk.”
Ethan laughed so hard he coughed.
Madison did too.
It came out unexpectedly, and for about twenty seconds the three of them laughed at a candle.
Then Nora started crying.
There was no warning.
Her face folded and she covered it with both hands.
Madison moved to her.
“I want my dad.”
The laughter was gone.
Madison sat beside her.
“I know.”
“Why didn’t he come?”
“He got delayed.”
“That’s what grown-ups say when they don’t want to tell kids.”
Ethan stared at his pizza.
Madison looked at him.
He looked back.
“Sorry,” he said.
Nora sniffed.
“You say it too.”
He nodded.
“Yeah.”
The doorbell rang at seven thirteen.
Madison knew who it was before she stood.
Daniel had a habit of ringing their own doorbell since moving out.
He said it seemed respectful.
Madison found it irritating but had never told him.
He stood on the porch holding a gift bag and looking like a man who had spent the drive rehearsing an explanation.
“What happened?”
Madison almost shut the door.
Instead she stepped aside.
Nora heard his voice.
“Dad!”
She ran from the living room.
Daniel dropped the bag and crouched just before she reached him.
He held her.
For a moment, nothing else mattered.
Nora cried into his shoulder. Daniel kissed the side of her head and whispered things Madison could not hear.
Then he saw the T-shirt.
“Where’s your dress?”
Nora pulled back.
“Grandma cut it.”
Daniel looked at Madison.
Not Nora.
Madison felt the old pattern arrive before he spoke.
“What does that mean?”
Ethan walked into the hallway carrying the tablet.
“It means Grandma Evelyn cut her dress.”
“Ethan.”
“What?”
“Let me talk to your mom.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“I was there.”
“So was she.”
Nora turned toward her brother.
“He was recording.”
Daniel’s face changed.
Madison saw it.
A calculation.
Small. Fast.
There and gone.
“Recording what?”
“My candles,” Nora said.
Ethan hugged the tablet against his chest.
Daniel stood.
“Can I see it?”
“No.”
The answer surprised all of them.
Daniel blinked.
“Buddy.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Grandma tried to take it.”
Daniel looked at Madison again.
“What happened?”
Madison crossed her arms.
“Ask your mother.”
“I’m asking you.”
“She cut the sash off Nora’s dress with the cake server.”
“Why?”
May you like
Madison laughed once.
There was nothing funny in it.
