Page 70 of Meet Me in the Garden

“Sure,” I say. “That’s a nice surprise.”

I watch as the birthday candles puncture the surface. Nathalie concentrates, strikes a match, lights them. They sing to me and I’m in another place, far away, not hearing. When it’s over, I ask, “Should we try it?”

They nod, vigorously, more and more as they wait for me to cut slices. “Look!” Clément says. “I’m getting a milkshake.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“Sister Bethany,” Nathalie says. “When a student misbehaves, she makes them go to the front of the class, and then she takes them by the shoulders and shakes them as hard as she can.”

I look at her. She can’t be serious. “Nottoohard, though,” I say. “Right?”

“Very,veryhard,” Clément says.

“The point is to concuss,” says Nathalie. “At least that’s what the fifth graders say.”

“She’s never done it to either of you, has she?”

They shake their heads. “Cake please,” Clément says.

“Cake,” I say. “Yes.” I cut three slices, place them on three plates. We dig into them with our forks. Moist and sweet, with even sweeter frosting, but it’s like paste in my mouth.

“More?” Nathalie asks when she’s finished.

“We need to save some for Daddy,” I say. “He’ll be home on Wednesday.”

But I look at the cake, and it’s infuriatingly pretty and neat, and I don’t care about it at all, didn’t even want it. I could have told Elise about my birthday, or told my sisters yes when they offered not to go, or had the girls from work take me to dinner. But I didn’t, so it’s my fault that I feel this way: forgotten and angry and sad all at once. “Maybe one more helping each,” I say, and I reach toward the cake and scoop a chunk out with my fingers.

Clément watches with fear in his eyes. I smile and drop the chunk on his plate and his fear turns to wonder. There’s pink frosting under my nails, vanilla sponge stuck to my skin.

“Can I? Can I?” Nathalie begs.

“Go ahead,” I say, running my hand under the tap.

“I’ll still leave some for Daddy,” she says. She digs out a smaller piece and places it right in her mouth.

“No fair,” Clément says. “I want to try!”

They scoop and chew, frosting smearing on the stand and their fingers and mouths, until their stomachs hurt and they collapse, sugar drunk and happy as can be.

Later, I cry in the bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet lid, quiet so I won’t wake the children, until eventually I stop. My eyes are red and puffy. Out in the kitchen, here’s the cake on its stand, dug into. I stare at it for a while as I hold a cold washcloth over my face. Stare longer and it becomes a painting. I know just how I’d make it.CouldI? A birthday gift to myself. Only a few hours. Everything tidied up before morning. Such a small and reasonable plan. Simple if I let it be.

I toss the washcloth into the sink. Open the windows wide. A canvas I stretched over the summer waits for me, tucked behind my dresser, just the right size. My box of paints is in the back of the cabinet, a thin layer of dust on its top. Inside: cadmium red, titanium white, yellows and blues… More than enough. The sense that the night will last as long as I need it to. I mix pink, sweep a strong line across the canvas, and my hand is steady and I’m seeing everything. The children’s finger punctures, the smoothness of the unmauled frosting, the knife resting, menacing, on the table. It’s violent and lovely and lurid and prim, one of my usual still lifes turned nightmarish.

I paint, and I allow each brushstroke to soothe me. I’m not rushing, and yet it goes fast, as though I never fell out of practice. Before long I’ve done all I can. The paint needs to dry before adding the crumbs and the string of white daisies that border the cake stand. A second night of painting, then. Careful and private. What harm could it do?

Noise comes from outside. Raccoons, maybe. I listen closer, and the knob turns, and Felix is in the doorway—his slender frame, his smile, his hat crooked on his head as he hoists his suitcase over the threshold.

“You’re back early!” I say, rising, so happy and relieved not to be alone that tears rush back.

“Oh good, you’re still up. Happy birthday, darling,” he says. “Look at this painting. Look at thiscake.”

“But how is this happening? How are you here?”

“You’ll never believe it. Iflew. It was divine. I’ll tell you everything, but first, close your eyes.”

I hear an unzipping, a rustling, his feet across the floor.

I peek, can’t help it. He’s opening a paper bag, dark with grease, crossing to the kitchen. A plate comes down. He arranges something on it. I shut my eyes again as he turns. My cheeks hurt with smiling as he walks toward me. But then a silence.