Chapter 1
The cake had two candles still burning and the wax was already pooling on the white frosting. My dark teal backpack was on the floor between my shoes and my hand was on it because my chest had started to get tight ten minutes earlier. I could hear my own breathing going shallow. The woman in the red dress reached across the white tablecloth and pressed down on my hand with hers. I saw her gold ring catch the candlelight.
She didn't lift her hand. She pressed harder, then slid my fingers off the zipper and pulled out the blue inhaler with the clear spacer. Her mouth was open and she was shouting and at the same time my dad's hands were flat on the table like he wasn't sure if he should stand. The warm pendant lights above us made everything look normal while it wasn't.
I was seven.
It was my birthday dinner. Evening, inside the upscale restaurant with the white tablecloths and the low drum lights and the candles on every table. My gray quarter-zip sweater felt too warm. The stemmed water glass was right in front of me and I hadn't touched it. When she took the inhaler I felt the spacer bump against the backpack zipper, then it was gone from my reach. I watched her wrist turn. She didn't put it in her lap or set it down. She threw it.
I didn't see where it landed at first because the camera of my eyes couldn't track it. There was just a blur, a streak of warm light from the pendants smearing across the dark wood and the white linens as the blue plastic went flying away from our table. The sound came after, a scrape and then a hush from the other tables. Then my hands were on my chest. Both of them. My fingers curled into the sweater and I tried to pull air in and it wouldn't come. The cake was still there, two flames shivering every time I tried to breathe. The water glass was still there. Nothing else at the table had moved except the inhaler was gone.
"Dad, I need my inhaler."
"You always need attention."
I heard her before I could answer. The words were flat and loud and she said them with her mouth wide open, leaning toward me like I had done something to her dinner.
"Stop pretending to be sick."
I tried again. My voice came out smaller this time because there was less air behind it.
"Dad, I can't breathe."
My dad's hands pushed up from the tablecloth. His dark blue shirt pulled tight across his shoulders when he stood. He said it low and fast, looking at her, not at me yet.
"Give it back now."
She didn't move to get it. She looked at the cake and then at me with my hands still locked on my chest and my eyes starting to water.
"You ruin my dinner."
My dad was already moving away from the table. He put one arm around me and pulled me close to his side and put his other arm out toward her like a fence. I could feel him breathing hard too. He got down on one knee on the wooden floor beside my chair, near the white linen of the next table, and I saw the blue inhaler back in his hand. He had found it. He held it out to me and his face was close to mine, worried and trying to stay steady.
"Use this."
He helped me get the clear spacer to my mouth. His hand was under my arm, holding it up because my own hands were shaking. I closed my eyes because it hurt to keep them open and keep trying to breathe at the same time.
"Breathe slowly."
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"Are you okay?"
I had the mask against my nose and mouth and I was inhaling but I couldn't tell yet if anything was getting in. The candles were still burning behind my eyelids and his hand was still under my arm and her chair was still pushed back at our table and no one had said what would happen next.
