Where his parents, Angie, and tons of the denizens of the Sunday open mic night at the bookshop were standing under a quickly assembled bouquet of balloons and streamers. Smiles on their faces. Warmth in their eyes. Their voices loud and ringing and as overwhelming as the silence of her own house had been.
“Happy Birthday to You… Happy Birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Sa-am…” They dragged her name out long enough for her to glance between the crowd and the now-singing Daniel. “Happy Birthday to you.”
“What is all this?”
“This wasn’t easy to put together in twenty minutes, so don’t judge the decorations, but happy birthday, darling.”
“Thank you, Mrs.…?” Sam hesitated, not sure what she was meant to call Daniel’s mother, who stepped out from the crowd to embrace her.
She stiffened at the contact, the warm, thick arms enveloping her body. It was like taking the bite of a foreign food for the first time or being given a gadget you have no idea how to work.What do I do now?At first, Sam did nothing but absorb the hug. Eventually, though, she returned it, sinking into the sensation. If she was going to let Daniel do something as recklessly emotional as throw her a birthday party, she might as well enjoy it. In a few days, it would all be over. This hug would be a memory.
“Oh! Goodness, me! I’m Daniel’s mum! Mrs. Best.” The hug ended; Sam shivered from the sudden loss of the woman’s warm embrace. Around them, the various invited parties chattered and joked, munching on crisps as the surprise party began in earnest. “And you’re the girl who’s been driving him mad these last few weeks.”
“Mum—”
The tips of Daniel’s ears turned pink. Samantha didn’t point it out, but she couldn’t help a small giggle at the sight. Dropping off his slice of cake on a nearby table, he slid his arm around her waist. Did he think she needed the support? Did he know how strange this scene was for her, like falling into the pages of a fantasy novel where birthdays actually mattered and people around you cared to celebrate them? Thomas might have celebrated it with her last year, but one party didn’t make up for a lifetime of lonely birthdays she celebrated alone with a single Twix bar.
“I’m Andrew, Daniel’s father.” The tall man with hair graying at his temples handed her a box wrapped in shining red paper. Green letters declared, “Happy Christmas ” in the wrapping, though Mr. Best wished her, “Happy Birthday.”
Please don’t be what I think it is. Please don’t be a present.
“What’s this?” she asked, her throat tightening.
“A little something. And I do mean alittlesomething.” Mrs. Best tucked herself under her husband’s arm, and he hugged her into his chest. It would have made Sam vomit if she didn’t believe their love. “Again, short notice.”
Her shaking fingers ran under the paper, breaking the tape away. The box’s top came out with a flick of her wrist. She pulled out the contents.
One long red scarf. Tassels on the end. Holes and missed purls everywhere. Handmade. Shoddily made. Imperfectly made.
“Where did you get this?” Sam asked, hoping it wasn’t what she thought.
“I made it, actually.” Daniel’s father raised a tentativeI’m guiltyhand. “She’s been teaching me to knit.”
“Don’t pin this on me,” Mrs. Best teased. “All of the holes are his fault.”
The scarf was ugly as sin, a terrible shade of red knit into a crooked strand of fabric with inappropriately large tassels on each end. For the last two years, since moving in with her father and trying to assimilate in the brave new world in which he lived, Samantha never wore anything less than perfect. Her father expected clean fabrics and pressed lines, brand names and expensive shopping bills. On her third night in England, she took her suitcase to the garbage cans in the back and dumped the entirety of its contents in them. Years of hand-me-down jeans and Goodwill T-shirts joined rotten banana peels and half-empty water bottles in the trash. From Dumpster Day forward, she dressed for the family she had and the family she wanted—like a goddamn princess.
A month ago, she wouldn’t have been caught dead even holding this scarf. What if her father saw? Now, she threw it around her neck, looping it until its arms hung down over her shoulders and its thick fibers tickled her jawline.
“It’s wonderful. Really.”Don’t you cry again. Don’t you fucking cry. “Thank you.”
…
The party raged on through the day and well into the night. People came and went, poured drinks and emptied them, sang songs and laughed harder than anyone could remember. Daniel watched Samantha with keen interest, sticking close to her side through it all. Eventually, the sun disappeared and the crowds dispersed, leaving Sam tucked into the sofa, surrounded by the remnants of the party. She stared lazily at the television.
Ten hours after she’d first been given it, she still wore the scarf his father knit her. When he furiously texted Angie asking her to rally the troops for a surprise birthday party, he had expected her to deliver. He hadn’t expected Sam to appreciate it quite so damn much. Even when she started sweating in the mid-afternoon heat, she didn’t take the thing off.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I’m going to explode from birthday cake,” she said, groaning. “Or turn into one.”
He couldn’t hold back a chuckle. Shehadeaten more than her fair share of birthday cake. He thought back to what she’d told him about her childhood, about growing up so differently than she was living now. When was the last time she’d had a real birthday, a celebration like this?
“No, I mean how’s your birthday?”
“This is the best day I think I’ve ever had,” she said, as calm and still as if she were reading instructions from a recipe book. Her lips scribbled a sort of half smile, but a haze of melancholy hung around her.
“Then why do you look so sad?”
