Chapter 13 - FREDERICK’S SECOND BIRTHDAY
We almost skipped the party.
Amy suggested something small.
Just cake.
Three or four people.
No extended family.
I agreed.
Then a week before Frederick’s second birthday, Amy changed her mind.
“Let’s do something.”
I looked at her.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Big?”
“No.”
She smiled.
“Ours.”
We decorated the backyard ourselves.
Blue balloons.
White streamers.
A small inflatable pool.
A table with cupcakes.
Nothing expensive.
Nothing impressive.
No lobster.
No champagne.
No performance.
Just people we trusted.
Betsy came early and helped set up chairs.
Rachel brought fruit.
Our neighbors came with their kids.
Officer Ramirez even stopped by after his shift because we had invited him.
Frederick ran around the yard wearing a tiny paper crown.
At one point, I stood by the back door.
The same door I had opened one year earlier.
I remembered my mother’s voice.
In this house, I make the rules.
I looked across the yard.
Amy was laughing.
Frederick was trying to eat frosting with both hands.
Music played softly.
Nobody was afraid.
That was the rule now.
Nobody in our home would live in fear.
Amy walked over.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
She followed my eyes toward the door.
“You were thinking about last year.”
“Yes.”
She leaned against me.
“So was I.”
I looked at our son.
“I’m sorry his first birthday was destroyed.”
Amy shook her head.
“He won’t remember it.”
“I will.”
“So will I.”
She squeezed my hand.
“But maybe that’s okay.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because we remember what changed.”
That was true.
The worst day of our marriage had also become the day we stopped living inside a lie.
It did not make the pain good.
It simply meant the pain had led somewhere.
Frederick smashed his hand into the cake.
Everybody laughed.
And for the first time, the memory of his first birthday stopped feeling like a wound.
It became a boundary between two lives.
May you like
Before.
And after.
