I checked the forecast obsessively. Her birthday promised the high seventies, a tiny miracle for that time of year. I prayed it stayed that way.
She deserved this—this sliver of normalcy, this chance to laugh with other children after months of isolation. She’d been starved of connection.
I knew it was a birthday Beau had feared she might never see.
I was trying to give him grace given this fact, but it was hard. The past week, he was grumpier than ever, a dark cloud blocking the sunshine that Clara brought to the house. And now he’d failed to tuck her in the night before her birthday.
I stomped around the house in anger as I arranged presents and decorations. I lividly blew up balloons, irritably climbing a ladder to string up my garland. Wrapped presents in vintage scarves and mismatched ribbons. I shoved in my headphones, playing a feminine rage playlist as my soundtrack for decorating the cake I’d made and put in the oven while Clara had her ‘quiet hour’ in her room earlier.
Something we’d instituted to help give her space, using it as reading time, to listen to music, or just wind down for the night.
I’d heard about the spider cake she’d been given before her bone marrow transplant, which was entirely cute and annoying since that had been my first idea. Then I’d heard that Nora from The Chaotic Baker had baked it and felt intimidated because there was no way I’d be able to replicate that deliciousness.
But I’d reasoned that anything full of sugar and frosting would taste good to a five-year-old, and if it didn’t, Clara would likely lie to protect my feelings.
I hope it didn’t suck.
Clara loved space, spiders, and all things weird. We’d recently been getting very into learning about fairies, toadstools, and all kinds of plants. I’d ordered outrageously expensive chocolate toadstools and was arranging them on the tiered ‘mossy’ woodland cake I made. It was dotted with sugar daisies, ladybugs, caterpillars, and some edible flowers. There was an adorable fairy figurine perched in the middle. Not edible, another gift for Clara. For her growing fairy garden. I’d already written a note from the ‘fairy’ on tea-stained paper about howshe would like to live in Clara’s fairy garden and watch over her while she slept.
All little girls deserved to believe in all sorts of magic at five years old, Clara more than most.
The cake looked pretty good, if I said so myself.
And tasted good, I thought, swiping the last of the frosting from the bowl.
A dark swath in my periphery made me let out a scream as I turned, brandishing my butterknife on instinct. My body tightened, ready to fight this intruder, determined to ensure that he didn’t get near the sleeping little girl in the room down the hall.
But as my vision cleared, I thankfully realized I wouldn’t have to fight for my life with a dull knife covered in frosting.
It wasn’t an intruder.
It was Beau.
He was standing in the middle of the kitchen, scowling at me—big surprise—his mouth moving.
I pulled my headphones from my ears. “What?”
His expression looked nuclear, nostrils flaring, hands fisted at his sides. “You should not be listening to music so fucking loud that you can’t hear anyone entering the house when you’re alone.”
He had a point. Jupiter had a laughably low crime rate, and this was a quiet family street, but shit did happen. I’d watched enough true crime documentaries to know women were never really safe, that even in our own homes, we were at risk. Especially in our own homes, as I’d learned the hard way.
Beau’s ire was still misplaced. I didn’t bother mentioning how low of a risk that really was. I’d lived in much more dangerous areas my entire life and managed to survive. This man didn’t know reason. And he had a point. His daughter wassleeping in her room. I was supposed to be taking care of her. Protecting her.
But then I remembered I was mad at him.
Therefore, I didn’t blurt an apology, which was second nature at that point. I felt like all I did was exchange rudimentary greetings and apologize to the man when I wasn’t talking about Clara.
Beau’s glower was zeroed in on me, but then he looked around me, at the cake then into the living room. The house had been transformed by decorations and presents.
“What the fuck is this?” His voice was heavy, throaty and accusing.
Of course, Beau would find this somehow insulting or irritating.
“This is a cake,” I stated, since his gaze was back on the cake. “A birthday cake. For your daughter. It’s her birthday tomorrow.”
I hadn’t thought it was possible, but his glower became even more severe. Brows pointing down, mouth a thin line, a tic in his jaw. “I fucking know it’s her birthday tomorrow. I was there theday she was born.”
The accusation was clear. The ownership. He was telling mehewas there, I wasn’t. Therefore, I had no right to speak in the biting tone I hadn’t previously ever used toward him.
