Underwater(43)

My mom butts in. “I think it would be really nice to invite Evan over for a piece of cake.”

Ben is off his stool and out the front door before I even come close to grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. The next thing I know, Evan’s shuffling sheepishly through our apartment in board shorts and a faded thermal. He takes a seat at the counter between Ben and my “Calm Down and Get It Together” checklist. I’m still in the kitchen so he stares me down through the space between the counter and the overhead cabinets.

“Hey,” he says, nodding at me.

“Hi.”

“Can I have a piece with dirt on it?” he asks.

This request sends Ben into a fit of giggles. “It’s just brown sugar.”

“It is? Bummer. I wanted real dirt,” Evan says.

Ben snort-laughs, choking on his milk for a second so that Evan has to pound his back and ask if he’s okay. Ben chills out, and my mom tells Evan his mom should come over, too.

“I’m sure she’d love to, but she’s at my aunt’s,” he says through a mouthful of cake. He looks at Ben. “It’s too bad, because she loves cake with dirt on it.”

Again, Ben snort-laughs.

“Who doesn’t love cake with dirt on it?” I ask, trying to keep up the momentum.

Evan jerks his head in my direction. “Whoa! You speak! I forgot what you sounded like.”

Yeah, right. Like he even cares.

“She sounds like this: wah wah wah wah wah,” Ben says.

“I do not sound like that!”

My mom stands up like she just received some offstage cue to busy herself in the kitchen. Ben sits there, oblivious, shoveling cake into his mouth. My mom opens a drawer. She rips off a ream of tinfoil. She covers the cake. She turns on the faucet. She rinses pots and pans from dinner. We had macaroni and cheese with a side of mashed potatoes because Ben got to pick. I’m going to have to do a double eighties aerobics workout tomorrow to make up for this meal.

Evan and I watch each other, wondering who will talk next. I’m sick of cake, but I keep eating because it gives me something to do.

“Do I really sound like that?” I finally ask Evan.

“No.” He tosses a lopsided grin my way. “It’s actually more screechy.”

I open my mouth to tell him off, but I can see that his lips are bunched up, holding in a laugh. I don’t know why it is that whenever he’s in my apartment everything seems less dark.

“Very funny,” I say. “Seriously. You’re hilarious.”

“Thanks. I know.”

My mom finishes up and nudges me out of the kitchen by tapping her hip to mine. “How about we open presents?” she says, throwing her hands up in the air like she’s about to start a conga line.

Ben jumps up and down because he’s officially six and presents are the best thing in the world when you’re six. My mom goes back to the bedroom to grab the gifts, and Evan and I settle on our respective ends of the couch. Ben sits in the middle of the floor waiting for my mom to hand the presents over. She returns with a couple of gifts and whips out her camera to take pictures as we watch Ben rip dinosaur-print wrapping paper off boxes like it’s a sport. My mom got him new Vans and an at-home science experiment kit. When he tears into the cardboard lining of the kit, she stops him.

“Outside,” she tells him. “In daylight. I can’t have you burning down Paradise Manor.”

I hand Ben a card I made. I drew a picture of him riding an apatosaurus and stuffed ten bucks of my own birthday money from September inside the card. “Save it,” I tell him.

He nods. “Can we check the mail?” He pops up and riffles through the pile of envelopes on the counter. “I bet I got more.” He pulls an envelope free from between the coupon mailers and bills. “See? Here’s one.”

“You’re very popular,” I say.

Ben rips the envelope open. His forehead crinkles up as he reads the words on the front. “I don’t get it.”

I pull it from his hands and read it to myself. In Deepest Sympathy it says. But it’s been crossed out with green pen and Happy Birthday has been scrawled underneath it in the barely legible chicken scratch I recognize immediately.

“It’s from Dad,” I say.

The whole room goes stiff. My dad isn’t here, but he’s still managing to make us feel as edgy as if he were sitting on the couch watching us through drunk eyes. And at the same time, even though I know it’ll only set me up for disappointment, there’s this sliver of longing. Of hope. It hits me at the core. I can see the expression on my mom’s face and on Ben’s. I know they’re thinking the same thing: Did he change? Is he better? Does he still love us? But no.

“What does it say?” Ben asks, all eager.

I open the card up and read out loud. “Happy Birthday, Benjamin. See you soon. Love, Dad.”

My mom is silent. Evan is, too. I want to throw up.

“See you soon, my ass,” I mutter under my breath, tossing the card to Ben like a Frisbee.

“Well, that was fun,” my mom says. She bends down to gather all the wayward wrapping paper and envelopes into a pile on the floor. “Time for your bath, Ben.”

Evan high-fives my brother, and then Ben races down the hallway to the bathroom. “I owe you a present,” Evan calls out to him.