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“Yes, really. I’m going to get a frame for it and hang it in my bedroom.”
From the corner of my eye I see Leo slip from the room.
“I frosted the cake myself. Daddy helped but I did it.”
“It looks sooo delicious. Can I have a piece?”
“Yes.” She walks over to the drawer and gets a butter knife, making a show of holding it the way I taught her, point down. “Let’s cut you a piece.” She’s role-playing, turning the tables on me and acting like she’s in charge. “Can you get two plates, Sky?”
I set the knife she’s holding down on the table. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. And Sky, do you want milk or water?”
“Ooh, with cake? A nice cold glass of milk.”
“Coming right up!” And I smile listening to her spot-on imitation of me.
I get the glasses as she hefts the container of milk from the refrigerator and sets it on the table.
“This is so nice,” I tell her as we cut the cake with my hand over hers.
“I know. It’s a special day.” Her expression is serious when she adds, “It’s not mudder day.”
I nod. “It’s a day for the other special people in your life.”
She nods but I can tell she’s troubled. She lets it go, though, focusing on the giant mouthful of cake perched on her fork. And then she’s smiling again, with pink frosting caught in the corners of her mouth.
“This is sooo good, Olivia. Did you know pink frosting was my favorite when you made this cake?”
“I know pink is your favorite color.” I didn’t know that but l nod and just go with it. “It was my mommy’s favorite color, too.”
“It was?”
She bobs her head up and down with a full mouth. After a few chews she says, “She liked pink dresses and,” she points to her own hair, “pink clips.”
“You look like your mom…A lot. She was really pretty just like you are.”
“I know,” she answers without missing a beat.
“So, you’re going away tomorrow. That’s so exciting, taking a ride on a plane.”
“You ever been on a plane?”
“No.” She looks at me with wide eyes. “Someday soon I will. Maybe I’ll take another trip to New York. I’ve been there before but my mom and dad drove us all the way there.”
“I want to go to New York.”
“It’s so much fun. When Sienna and I went with our parents we sawMary Poppinsin a big Broadway theater with red velvet seats. We ate in fancy restaurants and we rode in a carriage through Central Park, just like Cinderella. Oh, and we went to the racetrack and saw the horses run. They had the best hot dogs there. We ate ours piled with sauerkraut and mustard.”
She scrunches her face up. “Mustard…Eww!”
I dab a bit of leftover pink frosting on her nose. “Different strokes for different folks.”
As she wipes the frosting off her nose and licks it off her fingers, I’m overcome for a moment there, just taken by how sweet and loving a gesture this was. Looking around the kitchen again, I’m amazed that she did all of this for me.
The realization strengthens my resolve to make it work. I’ll suck it up for Olivia’s sake and for Leo’s. He’s been through enough.
I don’t know what Maureen was going on about the other night, but I can’t take what she said to heart. Doesn’t matter if they had a perfect marriage or an imperfect one. At the end of the day, he lost his wife and the mother of his child. I need to remember that.
