There was the sound of pages turning, a brief pause. “October fifteenth. Yes, that should work. We’ll be there.”
“Lily keeps asking when Grandma and Grandpa are coming.”
My mother’s voice warmed in the way it sometimes did when grandchildren came up. “Tell her we’re bringing something special.”
I called again two days before the party, just to confirm. My mother sounded mildly annoyed at the check-in, told me they were not senile, that they would be there at two, that I worried too much. I hung up feeling slightly embarrassed about having called at all. They were coming. Of course they were coming.
The morning of October fifteenth was the kind of autumn day that Portland occasionally produces as if apologizing for all the gray ones: crisp air, warm sun, leaves just beginning to turn gold at the edges. I was in the kitchen at seven in the morning making the cake, already covered in flour, humming along to the radio. By noon the apartment looked like something from a children’s party catalog, insofar as a modestly furnished two-bedroom can look like that. Pink and purple streamers crossed the ceiling. A banner I had hand-lettered hung over the couch. The cake sat in the refrigerator with pink frosting and purple flowers I had piped around the edges with a bag and tip I had borrowed from a coworker, not perfectly, but with a care that I thought Lily would recognize.
