The truth was that I hated my birthday.When I was young, my mother always made a big deal out of my birthday.The house would be decorated, and we would spend the day doing fun stuff together.She would bake me a cake and give me presents throughout the day as we celebrated.After she died, my father tried his best to keep up with her traditions, but as time passed and his drinking got worse, it became more of a hindrance than a celebration.The first year that he forgot my birthday was the day when I realized that the father I thought I had, the one I loved dearly when I was a little girl, died the day my mom did.
“It’s not just another day,” Enzo corrected gently as he rested his hand over mine.“It’s the day that you were born, and that’s a day that—”
“It’s the day my mother died.”
Forty-Eight
Enzo
My mind was racingas I cleaned up dinner, letting Violet’s words play over and over in my head.She had been upset at the mention of her birthday, so we gave her some space when she said she wanted to rest in her room.I hated that for once, I didn’t know what to do to make her feel better.
“What do we do?”Asher said, loading dishes into the dishwasher while I put the last of the food in the fridge.
“I don’t know.”
“I knew her mom died when she was young, but I never knew that it happened on her birthday.”
“I know.I didn’t either.”I closed the fridge and leaned against it.“I can’t imagine how hard that had to have been for her growing up.”
“Same.Add on a strained relationship with her father, and the poor girl has been all by herself.”
I nodded in agreement, letting everything process.
“I want to make her feel special every day, but fuck, I really want to celebrate her on her birthday,” Asher continued.“I want her to know how much we love her and make her feel like the most loved person on the planet.”
“I agree.But we can’t force her to celebrate if she doesn’t want to.Her pain is something only she knows, so we can’t pretend to understand what she’s been through.She’s been doing this for fourteen years without her mom; we can’t just sweep in and change things because we want to show her we love her.”
“You’re right.We need to take a step back and see what she needs.”
“I think we need to give her some more time before we go pepper her with questions about this.Who knows, she may not want to talk about this with us.”
“I really hope that doesn’t happen.We have such a good thing with her.I don’t want to lose it.”
“I don’t want to either,” I said.“But if we love her like we say we do, we have to step back and let her guide us on how she wants to handle this.If she doesn’t want to celebrate her birthday, we’re not going to make her.”
Asher pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded.I knew he hated the idea of not celebrating her as much as I did.
