Chapter 10
On my thirteenth birthday, Dad waited for me before he opened the cake box.
Everybody else had already gathered around the kitchen table.
Tyler stood beside my school friends. Lily wore a yellow cardigan. Mason held a stack of blue paper plates.
Aunt June was trying to make Dad stop adjusting the candles.
“They’re candles, Mark. They don’t need to meet building regulations.”
“I like them straight.”
I laughed.
The cake was the same flavor as last year. The frosting was the same bright blue.
Nothing else felt the same.
Dad put a hand on my shoulder.
“Ready?”
I nodded.
They sang.
Lily sang too loudly. Tyler missed a word. June added an extra line that made everybody laugh.
I closed my eyes.
Last year, I wished someone would notice.
This year, I wished we could keep doing this: telling the truth, asking questions, and staying at the table even when feelings were complicated.
I blew out all thirteen candles.
Dad picked up the knife.
“Birthday boy first.”
He cut a generous slice and put it on a blue plate.
Then he handed it to me.
I stared at it for a moment.
Nobody rushed me.
Nobody told me to smile for a picture.
I took a bite.
Chocolate cake tasted like chocolate cake.
That was the surprising part.
For a whole year, that missing slice had felt enormous. Now the one in front of me was ordinary, sweet, and mine.
Lily nudged my elbow.
“Good?”
“Really good.”
Dad served everybody else.
There was enough.
Afterward, we played games in the garden. Mason let Tyler win one round and denied it so badly that we all laughed.
June took photographs, including one with Lily, Mason, and me beside the fence.
I kept my arm around Lily.
Mason stood close enough that our shoulders touched.
I did not think about whether we were officially siblings. They were people I cared about who were learning to care for me properly.
That was enough.
When the party ended, Aaron came to collect them.
Lily hugged me.
“Best birthday?”
I thought about birthdays when Mom was alive. I did not want to replace those.
“One of the best.”
She understood.
Mason shook my hand, then pulled me into an awkward hug.
“See you at the court.”
“Bring your own ball.”
He grinned.
“I will.”
Tyler left next, promising to send photographs. My other friends waved from their parents’ cars.
June stayed to help clean, but Dad insisted she take leftover cake home.
“You’ve earned it,” he said.
She looked at me.
“Save your favorite piece.”
“I already ate it.”
“Then save your second favorite.”
After she left, the house grew quiet.
Dad and I washed plates together. He rinsed while I dried.
There were no towering chores assigned to one person while everybody else rested.
We finished in ten minutes.
On the kitchen table sat one small package I had not opened.
Dad handed it to me.
“It’s from me. There’s something from your mom inside too.”
I peeled back the paper.
It was a sketchbook with thick pages and a set of pencils.
Inside the cover, Dad had placed a copy of Mom’s birthday list.
The line for thirteen read:
Let him imagine a future bigger than what he has already survived.
I touched the words.
Dad stood beside me.
“I thought you could use it for your buildings.”
I nodded, unable to speak for a moment.
Then I opened to the first page.
“What are you drawing?” he asked.
“A house.”
“Big one?”
“Not too big.”
I drew a front door, windows, and a kitchen table.
“How many bedrooms?”
“Enough.”
Dad smiled.
I added a room for myself, a room for him, and places for people who might stay. I drew a shelf for Mom’s wooden box.
Then I drew chairs around the table.
Dad watched quietly.
At the bottom of the page, I wrote a rule.
Nobody has to earn dinner.
He read it.
His eyes filled.
“No,” he said. “They don’t.”
I put down the pencil and leaned against him.
For a long time, I had thought I needed to be easy, grateful, and quiet to keep a place in his life.
Now I could cry without being called dramatic.
I could ask without being called selfish.
I could remember Mom without being told to move on.
I could love Lily and Mason without pretending they had never hurt me.
And I could sit at a table knowing there was room for me.
Dad kissed the top of my head.
“Happy birthday, Ethan.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Later, he came to my room to say goodnight.
Mom’s photograph stood beside the lamp. Her card lay safely in the wooden box. My headphones were on my desk.
Nothing important was hidden.
Dad paused at the door.
“Hardest part of today?”
I thought carefully.
“Knowing what to wish for.”
He smiled.
“Best part?”
I looked at him.
“You stayed.”
He crossed the room and hugged me again.
“I’m staying.”
May you like
When he turned out the light, I did not listen for angry footsteps or wonder what tomorrow would cost.
I fell asleep with the taste of chocolate still in my mouth, certain that I was loved and certain that, in this house, I would never have to wait for permission to matter.
