Chapter 15 - The Candle
I answered my daughter.
“Hey, sunflower.”
“Can we have pancakes tonight?”
Behind her, I heard Jo laugh.
“Absolutely.”
“With chocolate chips?”
“With chocolate chips.”
I ended the call and faced my father.
“Telling the truth mattered,” I said.
“But it doesn’t give you access to her.”
He looked down.
“Will it ever?”
“I don’t know. That isn’t a promise I’m making today.”
Then I walked to my car.
Nobody blocked my way.
Life after the case did not arrive polished.
There were more appointments.
Bills that required patient phone calls.
Days when Ruby knocked over a cup and cried because she was tired of having to think about things other children did without thinking.
I cried sometimes, too.
Usually after she went to sleep.
Eventually, I started seeing my own therapist and stopped calling that a luxury.
We stayed away from my parents’ house.
Lydia kept coming on Thursdays.
Jo remained the person Ruby wanted when I could not be there.
Near her seventh birthday, Ruby found a yellow dress in a store window.
I almost steered her past it.
Then she said, “That one has pockets.”
“Do you like it?”
She nodded.
I waited while she studied it.
“I can still like yellow,” she said.
“Yes, baby.”
My throat tightened.
“You can like anything you liked before.”
For her birthday, we had five children, paper plates, a crooked banner, and a cake Jo insisted she could decorate herself.
One frosting flower slid sideways before the guests arrived.
Ruby said it looked like it was dancing.
Nobody raised their voice when juice spilled.
Nobody turned a mistake into a threat.
I wiped the table while the children argued cheerfully about which game to play.
The ordinary noise felt like music.
When it was time for cake, Ruby stood beside me in her yellow dress.
Chocolate raspberry.
Her choice.
She watched me lift the knife, then glanced toward the kitchen doorway.
The room seemed to hold its breath inside mine.
“Is that piece for somebody?” she asked.
I set the knife down.
I crouched on her right side.
“It’s your cake. You can have whichever piece you want.”
She considered the biggest frosting flower.
Then she pointed.
“That one.”
We sang.
She shut her eyes to make a wish, both of them, and blew out the candle.
After everyone left, she helped me fold the banner.
“What did you wish for?” I asked.
“Can’t tell.”
“Fair enough.”
She slid her hand into mine.
“But I didn’t wish to go back.”
Neither did I.
The next morning, an envelope from my mother arrived through the permitted channel, asking whether time had changed anything.
I put it in a drawer for my lawyer and went to the kitchen.
Ruby was waiting with two plates.
“Cake for breakfast?” she asked.
I looked at the crumbs, the crooked flower, the child who no longer needed to apologize for being hungry.
“Just this once.”
May you like
She grinned.
And when she reached for the first piece, nobody stopped her.
