“I tried to tell her you wouldn’t want this for the party, but she insisted,” Thane says. “And she’s going to make you sing. So be prepared.”
“It’s not a party if there’s no karaoke,” Jenny says, rolling her eyes at Thane.
They explain what it is and why it’s fun, and I laugh alongside them as they talk about times they went to bars in town and got drunk doing it.
“Happy birthday, by the way,” Jenny says, giving me a one-armed hug as she holds a large cake in her other hand.
“Thanks.” I blush at having all this attention on me.
A lot of my memories have come back over the month I’ve been away from the facility. A lot of that is thanks to being able to travel back and forth between the Wild Heart pack and the Echo Ridge pack to talk to my family.
Jenny and Thane have been able to share a lot with me. Even though the memories we shared stopped when I was eight years old, they lived on with them in an inexplicable way, and I’m thankful for that now.
Now, I have an idea of who my parents were. I’m still waiting for clarity about the night I was taken. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking the memory is going to come suddenly, and I’ll hear my parents screaming as they try to find me in the fire.
I’m happy to know that they cared about me. They loved me. Jenny and Thane have told me they were head over heels for each other, too. We were a happy family for a long time, and knowing that means the world to me. Someday, I’m going to have the same thing with Zeke. I can’t wait for that to come.
Jenny was the one who told me about my birthday. Apparently, she had been celebrating it quietly every year since I was gone. It became a little ritual she did with herself, where she would bake a cake and wish me happy birthday. Something always drove her to do it, and she didn’t know exactly what it was. But now, I think I know that it’s hope.
She never lost hope that there was a chance I would celebrate with her. And now, here we are, ten years later, hanging up a piñata filled with candy for a birthday party. The kind of birthday party I always begged my parents for when I was younger, according to Jenny.
“Where’s your man?” she asks, leaning back against the counter casually.
“He said he has a surprise for me,” I answer with a shrug.
“I bet it’s a big, expensive birthday gift,” Tara says with a wide smile.
“It better be,” Jenny tacks on with a laugh.
“I’ll just be happy having him here. I don’t really need anything.”
Footsteps down the hall catch our attention, and Nora walks in with the baby on her arm. Everyone stops talking and rushes around her to coo over baby Ashton.
He’s only a couple of weeks old, and he’s absolutely perfect. He barely cries, which I’m thankful for, and he’s doted on and spoiled like no other.
“You shouldn’t be up walking around,” Tara chastises Nora, leading her to the table to sit down.
“You try staying in bed for six weeks straight and tell me if you wouldn’t want to take a little walk.” Nora sighs.
She immediately picks up some of the candy off the table and opens the wrappers. The five of us hang out in the kitchen for a while, putting everything else together for the party. Tara cooks dinner while Jenny puts together the karaoke machine. Nora and I both talk about the latest episode ofBridgertonthat we watched last night, and try to convince Tara to give it a chance. After a while, we hear a knock on the front door, and we know the first guests coming for the party have arrived.
The house fills up quickly, and music plays over the karaoke machine. A few people decide to get up and sing along to the words, their voices not pleasant with the rest of the music.
As time goes on, Zeke doesn’t show up, and I feel myself starting to worry. I stand by a window waiting for him, and when I see the headlights of a car pull in, I know instinctively that it’s him. I rush out of the room and meet him outside, wrapping my arms around him excitedly.
“What took you so long?” I ask, just happy to have him back.
“Perfection takes time,” he says, gesturing to the wrapped package in his hand.
He leads me to the porch, and both of us sit down on the front steps for a minute while the party is in full swing behind us. It’s nice to have a moment of quiet to just be with him and celebrate today.
“Open it,” Zeke says as he hands me the package.
I smile and carefully untie the red ribbon on the top before prying open the corners of the wrapping paper as gently as I can. Zeke laughs, seeing how neat I am.
It opens to a cardboard box with a lid that I pull off. I gasp seeing what’s inside.
“It took some digging, and with Roderick’s help, I found this,” Zeke explains while I grab the simple black picture frame from the box and hold it in my hands. “You were six years old when the photo was taken.”
