Chapter 3
I walked back into the living room and the air felt wrong. Too bright. Too loud. My wife was by the cake table smiling with her hosting smile, the one she used for neighbors and family, while down the hall my daughter's thudding had gone uneven behind that white paneled door with the pink tinsel still hanging crooked from where her shoe had hit it. The three-tier cake sat untouched on the pink tablecloth, the red hearts on the frosting catching the daylight from the window. Balloons clustered in the corner, pink and yellow and white, bobbing a little every time someone walked past. Someone had put on birthday music again, low and tinny from a Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen counter.
My name is David. That morning I'd blown up those same balloons on our living room floor while my daughter counted them out loud.
I tried to keep my voice even when I reached my wife. I kept my hands in my pockets so no one would see them shaking. The guests were watching us without watching us, that polite American way where everyone pretends to talk to each other while listening to the couple by the cake.
"She should be here for this," I said, quiet enough that only she could hear. I nodded toward the cake. "We can't cut it without her."
My wife didn't look down the hall. She adjusted a plate, straightened a stack of napkins. Her green wrap dress tied at the waist, and I could see her breathing slow, controlled.
"She can join when she says sorry," she said. She said it soft, with a smile still on, like she was talking about frosting flavors. "The key's in the bedroom. On the dresser. She knows what she did."
One of the neighbor moms laughed too loud at something near the kitchen island. My wife turned her smile toward her and nodded, and for a second her face was completely calm, completely in control of the party.
I asked her for the key directly. I kept my voice low. "Can I have it then? Let me get her."
She shook her head once, small. "Not until she apologizes. She ruined the pictures. She needs to learn. If you open that door now, you teach her she can scream until she gets her way."
Down the hall, the thudding stopped.
It wasn't gradual. One second there was that soft, repeated thump against the white door — her shoe, her hands, I wasn't sure — and then nothing. No cry. No call for me. Just the faint birthday music and the murmur of adults trying to be normal. The silence was worse than the noise. It pressed against my ears.
I glanced toward the hallway. The gold HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner glinted a little where the hallway light hit it. The red balloon above the door had drifted to one side and gone still.
"Did you hear that?" I said.
My wife followed my look for half a second, then looked back at the cake. "She's pouting. She does this. Give her a minute and she'll knock again."
But she didn't knock again. I stood there with a paper plate in my hand that someone had handed me, and I could feel every second tick. My cousin held his kid up to see the cake. My wife started talking about when we should light the candles, asking the room if everyone had their phones ready.
I leaned in again. "She's seven. She's been in there since before the cake. She's not pouting, she's alone."
"We talked about this," my wife whispered back, her smile tight now. "Don't make a scene in front of everyone. You want me to be the bad guy because I actually set a boundary?"
I didn't answer that in front of the others. I set the plate down on the table beside the cake. My fingers left a faint sweat mark on the paper.
May you like
I told her I was going to check on the ice cream in the kitchen, loud enough for the neighbor to hear, and I started toward the hallway instead. I needed that key before the silence stretched any longer. I could feel my wife's eyes on my back as I stepped away from the table, past the balloons, toward the warmer, dimmer light of the hall where the framed portrait of us hung crooked on the beige wall. Behind me, someone suggested we sing anyway, and my wife laughed and said, "Let's give the birthday girl one more minute to be ready for her entrance."
I didn't turn around. The door at the end of the hall stayed white and closed and too quiet, and I knew if I didn't get that key myself, no one else would.
