Page 33 of Second Start: Family
Don’t worry if there are teen strains. They’ll come back together.
Lizzie, Molly, Bobby, yeah.
But did she include Dan in that?
Dan was different. And if he left home now…
That’s what gnawed at Hall.
Annie broke with her family, broke with her past, and never looked back. And Dan was just like her.
Then another thought struck him.
Kenzie told him the truth about her history. He was sure of that.
Just as sure as he was that she hadn’t told him all the truth.
After he put the cake a safe distance above Crafty’s deep, abiding interest in it, the reassuring message came in. Then Hall slept a couple hours on the couch.
He was awake before he heard the first sounds from upstairs — but not by much. And he had things to do.
It was probably that last rush to get the cake in place and the candles lit that had his heart thudding faster than the footsteps on the stairs — which counted out all four kids coming downstairs.
Lizzie was first, her eyes wide with excitement.
He grinned.
Only for an instant.
Because his daughter’s face fell when she spotted the cake. She stopped dead, the other kids piling up behind her in the doorway.
“Happy birthday, girls!” He said with what felt like false cheer. “There’s your birthday cake, Lizzie, Molly.”
“Not precisely.”
“Sure it is, we — I made it for your birthday. Now you get to cut it.”
He nudged the knife he’d already placed out. But without any hope. How’d he gotten it wrong?
“That’s not her birthday cake,” Molly said.
“What do you mean?”
Dan rolled his eyes with a disgusted half shake of his head. “Mom makes — made us each our favorite cake.”
He moved away from the table, going to lean on the counter, not facing them, but the door, as if he couldn’t wait for this to be over.
“Lizzie gets a spicy cake with beige frosting,” Molly said like she was explaining that breakfast came before lunch. “Chocolate’s Dan’s birthday cake—”
Dan’s birthday.
May 2.
He’d remembered the week before. It was the end of calving season. He’d been checking on the heifers, and he’d been thinking about spring and how the ground might be warm enough this year for early planting. Not like the year Danny was born, when they drove through a snowstorm to bring him home from the hospital. His birthday was coming up. Had to do something about that.
And then a heifer started showing that she was going to calve, and it was twins and difficult and she wasn’t feeding either of them and there were long nights of nursing the calves … And he forgot his older son’s birthday.
“—And I get white cake with pink frosting. And Bobby gets yellow cupcakes with sprinkles in the white frosting.”
