Page 124 of Finding Us

He closes his eyes, then opens them and blows out all 20 candles.

I cut the cake, giving him an extra large piece. As I’m cutting my own piece, he takes a bite of the cake.

He coughs a little. “Was this a mix?”

“No, why?”

He drinks his water, not saying anything as he holds his fork above the cake.

“Now what? Did I screw up the cake, too?”

“Just taste it.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I put a bite of cake in my mouth and instead of a yummy chocolate flavor, all I get is a strong bitter taste. I run to the sink and spit it out. “That’s even worse than the lasagna!” I drink some water to get rid of the bitterness that’s still in my mouth.

Garret appears behind me. “Did you use baking soda instead of baking powder?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I reach in the cupboard and pull out a small orange box. “I used this.”

“That’s baking soda. And did you use that same spoon to measure it?”

I nod. “So I guess we’re not having cake.” I slump my shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Garret. I really wanted to make a special birthday dinner for you and instead, it’s a total disaster.”

He brings me in for a hug. “It’s not a disaster. It’s not a big deal. We’ll just go out for dessert. We’ll order the biggest sundae we can find and we’ll get two spoons.”

“Like the Boxcar Bonzana?”

“It won’t be exactly like it, but I’m sure they have something similar somewhere around here.”

“Let me just clear the table quick and we can go.” I start to pull away but he keeps me in his arms.

“Leave it. We’ll get it later.” He looks at me, a big grin on his face. “I love you.”

“I don’t know why.” I gaze down at the floor. “I ruined your birthday.”

“Hey.” He tips my chin up and our eyes meet. “It was a great birthday. The best one ever.”

“Yeah, right. Maybe the funniest one ever.”

“Jade, things aren’t always going to be perfect. And I don’t expect them to be. Some of our greatest memories will be times when things don’t go as planned. I’d probably forget about a perfect dinner. But salty lasagna and bitter cake? That’s something I’ll always remember.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d forget about that.”

“We can’t forget about it. It’s part of our story.”

“We have a story?”

“That’s what life is, Jade. It’s just a bunch of memories that come together to form a story.”

“Did you just come up with that?”

“Yeah, why?”

“That was deep.” I pretend to be serious. “Very insightful.”

“It was, wasn’t it? I could put that on a greeting card. Or coffee mugs. Magnets. Damn, I could start a whole business. My rambling thoughts could end up making me millions.”

I laugh. “You work on that later. For now, let’s go find you a sundae.”

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