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Would that the Roman people have but one neck!
– Gaius Caligula, Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars
Claudia
Two years ago
It’s my birthday.
I stare at the open book in my lap, thinking that I have to go to work at the diner in a couple of hours, thinking that if things were different – if my mother hadn’t been sliced to pieces, if my father hadn’t died suffocating in a coffin – I might have a birthday celebration to look forward to, instead of another day of endless, numbing silence.
From her spot on the arm of the sofa, Queen Boudica raises her head and regards me with a stoic nod. Even though she’s only lived with me for a couple of months, it feels like we’ve known each other my whole life. She seems to sense when the darkness of my solitary existence threatens to consume me, and chooses those exact moments to remind me that she’s here, she’s a cat so she doesn’t need anyone, but she quite likes me, and could I open another can of tuna, please?
Queen Boudica pads over my book and slumps across my legs, exposing her belly for rubs. I stroke her silky fur as a hard lump rises in my throat.
Daddy always took the day off work on my birthday. No matter what was going on in his empire, he made the time for me. We’d do something together as a family, just the three of us. Sometimes Daddy let me invite Antony along, too – like that time he took us both to this crazy ranch in the middle of nowhere where we threw axes at trees and ate rabbit stew. It was one of my favorite birthdays ever.
For my ninth birthday, Daddy rented an entire rooftop restaurant and hired a team of chefs to make me anything I wanted. I asked for lamb chops and strawberry ice cream sundaes, and the four of us had an epic food fight, coating the walls in strawberry sauce that dribbled like blood after a massacre. That one was pretty cool, too.
I often wondered if Daddy had the chefs killed after that party, since they had seen my face.
But for my seventh birthday, I asked if I could have a party at a fast-food restaurant with a playground and a ball pit, like the kids I saw on TV. So Daddy emptied our pool and filled it with balls, and had his chef prepare gourmet burgers and truffle-butter fries. I cried the whole day.
Daddy tried. But it was never about the ball pit.
It was about being the only kid at my birthday party.
And here I am again, the only human guest at my lame-ass pity party. I mash the buttons on the remote, and Gabriel Fallen’s voice rises through the opulent ballroom, singing of broken wings and avenging angels. I feel his own broken wings wrapping around me, the feathers tickling my face.
Memories assault me,
I curl my back against the onslaught
of you
Memories are for sharing.
Forgetting is a refuge.
Pain is a weapon,
Sharpened to kill.
This pain I carry,
Into battle, toward death.
I carry for you.
How does he do that? How does he reach out of the speakers and squeeze my heart until my ribs feel like they’re going to collapse?
I slam the book closed and throw it across the room. Queen Boudica gives me a sharp ‘mew,’ reminding me that the company of a cat should be all I ever require to be happy.
Solitude is fine and dandy, except when it’s not.
Antony bursts into the ballroom just as the book clatters against the wall, leaving a dent in the plaster. He’s dressed for the club in his favorite suit, and holding a couple of white takeout boxes. He stares at the ruined book a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk. “I see the birthday’s going well.”
I hiss through my teeth. Queen Boudica sits up, peering at the boxes, her whiskers twitching with anticipation.
