“Cake for Jack Curtis.”
“Whoa,” Patrick exclaimed. Behind the deliveryman arched an enormous rainbow in the sky.
“Neat, huh?”
Patrick tipped the guy a twenty and balanced the pink pastry box in one hand. He marveled at the rainbow as the delivery guy returned to his van. Sara, is that you? he thought, but felt instantly foolish. What was a rainbow after all, refracted light? Gay people, Christians always fighting over the symbolism when rainbows rightfully belonged to the leprechauns.
He kicked the door closed and set Marlene on the ground, careful to balance the cake. The truce he’d established with Maisie since brunch was fragile; a ruined surprise could reignite their war.
As promised, Patrick had taken them to the Cabazon dinosaurs roadside attraction. At the base of the life-size brontosaurus, Maisie nestled into her uncle. It might have been to shield herself from the wind that came whipping through the exhibit, kicking up sand from the parking lot; it might have been to commiserate over having to go to the dinosaurs for Grant yet again. Patrick had put his arm around her anyhow; he was willing to take what he could get and she didn’t openly rebel. They even dug for dinosaur eggs in the sandpit together, crouching low to avoid the wind.
“Can we do a video?” Grant asked. It was the one thing that never failed to bring them together.
“Sure. We’ll film one in slow motion. You both run from the T. rex and look back over your shoulder like it’s chasing you.” Patrick fished his camera out of his pocket. “And scream. Make sure you scream big.”
“I don’t feel like screaming,” Maisie protested.
“You’re being chased by a dinosaur. Screaming is the most important part!” And then, without really thinking, Patrick screamed a long, hoarse yawp to prove his point. A weekday morning, the crowds were thin, but his carrying-on still turned a few heads. He scanned the startled gawkers and then pointed up at the T. rex’s open mouth towering above them as explanation.
And then the kids screamed, too. And Patrick screamed again. And together they’d released these primal, mournful wails that were swallowed by the howling wind.
“What’s in the box?” Grant asked, appearing through the sliding glass door. It seemed aggravatingly nosy at first, intrusive, the way he would materialize at the sound of the doorbell, until Patrick remembered how, for years after Joe died, the way his heart would lift whenever someone opened a door; he knew intellectually Joe wouldn’t walk through, but in those fractions of seconds he remembered what hope felt like.
Patrick gently nudged Marlene out of the way with his foot to clear a path to the kitchen. “A surprise. Want to help me? I need to find matches.”
Grant vibrated enthusiastically. He was conspiratorial by nature, and if lighting something on fire was a part of this, he was one hundred percent on board.
Together they tapped on Maisie’s bedroom door. Patrick held the cake with three lit candles, their gentle flames dancing in the current from the air-conditioning vent. It had lavender icing and elaborate sugar flowers that crawled up the sides of the cake like vines. The design wasn’t to Patrick’s taste, but that was hardly the point. It wasn’t for him. Grant held his ear to the door and snickered.
“Go away.”
Patrick knocked again.
“I’m asleep.”
“Then how are you talking?” Grant implored. He apparently found this hysterical, but worked hard to stifle his giggles.
After a pause Maisie replied, “I’m reading.”
Patrick opened the door slowly, and when he saw Maisie’s eyes connect with the cake he pushed his way in. The room was darkening, drained of its color the way things can look in the last of a gloomy day’s light; the candles introduced a sunny, yellowish hue. Maisie was lying on the floor with a book and, betraying her inner determination, she looked up at her uncle with wonder.
“What’s that for?”
“You tell me.”
Maisie closed her book and sat up. She clasped her hands together and placed them under her chin. “It’s Mom’s birthday today.”
“Yes it is.” Sara’s birthday. Send flowers. The message that appeared on his lock screen that morning.
“She’s not here, though. To celebrate.” Her voice dripped with defeat.
Patrick knelt in front of his niece and ushered Grant around. He held the cake between them. Maisie’s eyes grew wet and a single candle flame danced in each of her dark pupils. For a flickering moment, he saw Sara in Maisie, plain as day. And then the light shifted and he saw himself, even though he knew it wasn’t him, but rather his brother, Greg.