Page 33 of Wreckage and Rain

Read it twice.

Three times.

No "happy birthday."

He didn't forget the dinner. He forgot my birthday. The day. The fact that twenty-four years ago today I arrived on this planet and he is supposed to care about that. It didn't register.

I lock my phone. Set it face down on the table. Look up at Mama, who is watching me with a stillness that tells me she saw my face change before I could fix it.

"Everything okay?"

"Colt's stuck at work." I smile. "Big deal closing. He said don't wait up."

Daddy's hand goes still around his fork. He sets it down. Carefully. Like he doesn't trust his own hands tonight.

"He's not coming." Not a question.

"He got tied up, Daddy. The Tidewater account. It could change everything for his career."

I hear myself. The bright, practiced quality of my own voice.

Daddy looks at Mama. The jaw thing is back. He doesn't smooth it out this time.

"Greg," Mama says softly.

He picks up his fork.

Autumn reaches across the table and takes my hand. Doesn't say anything. Her grip says it all. I see you. I'm furious. Tonight I'll let you pretend.

Jake clears his throat. "So, Summer. Tell me about the new book. Your editor called it the best thing you've written."

Jake Holloway, building me a bridge to walk across. Making it look like solid ground.

"She did, actually." My voice wobbles once. Then steadies. And I talk about my book for twenty minutes while my family listens like it's the most fascinating story they've heard, and nobody looks at the empty chair, and the brown butter cake has twenty-four candles, and I blow them all out in one breath.

I don't make a wish.

***

I tell Mama and Daddy I'm staying at Autumn's tonight.

Mama doesn't ask why. She just nods. Folds a napkin in half. Folds it again. "Take some cake, baby. For both of you."

Daddy walks me to the car. He doesn't say anything until I've got my hand on the door handle, and then he says, "Anything you need, Summer." That's it. That's the whole sentence. Coming from Greg King, that's a paragraph.

"I know, Daddy."

"Anything." He kisses the top of my head.

I drive to Autumn's with the cake in a Tupperware on the passenger seat.

She doesn't ask questions either. She unlocks her door, hands me a pair of sweats and a Vandy t-shirt that smells like her detergent, pours me a tequila I don't need and absolutely do need. We sit on her couch with bad reality TV on low and she lets me cry without trying to fix anything. Around two in the morning she puts a blanket over me and goes to her room and leaves her door open in case I need her.

I sleep on her couch. Real sleep. The first I've had in weeks. Which is its own kind of indictment.

***

I wake up at seven thirty on Sunday to coffee smell and Autumn typing at her kitchen counter. She looks up.