Page 83 of The Love We Deny
The conversation moves around the table, Frank asking Will about his new job and Will giving one-word answers, while Addie chats with Joyce about school. Ollie has spaghetti sauce all over his face by the time he gets done eating.
I compliment Joyce’s spaghetti and ask her for the recipe like I always do, and she replies with a long list of steps I’ll never be able to remember. When I say something that gets a laugh from everyone, I look across at Will automatically, and to my surprise, he’s not laughing.
He’s watching me, the warmth I’ve begun to see in his eyes nowhere to be found. And as much as I tell myself he’s trying notto make our relationship obvious in front of his parents, it still makes my stomach turn.
After dinner, with a chocolate cake and a candle in the center, everybody sings happy birthday no matter how many times I’ve told them it’s not necessary.
I blow out the candle, making me officially forty-six, and Joyce starts cutting pieces, handing them out to everyone at the table.
We’re having a great time. Even Addie is smiling.
Until Will puts his fork down loud enough that everyone looks up.
“Must be nice,” he says, staring down at his slice of cake, the same way he said it all those years ago. My stomach drops before he says anything else.
“Having all this,” he continues, looking up to meet my eyes, gesturing around the room. “Birthday party. Cake. A pile of presents.” He cuts himself off with a laugh that sounds nothing but mean. “Shit. I didn’t even get a call last year.”
Everyone at the table is silent for a tense moment that passes when Ollie says something unrelated, and then everyone is talking again, and Will is eating his cake, helping my son with his. It’s back to things as usual for the whole family, like he didn’t even say that.
Except for me.
He’s not wrong. He was in prison on his birthday last year, and nobody called. I didn’t think to, at least. I guess Joyce and Frank didn’t either.
But I’ve known Will long enough to know what this is. He’s never given any of us a reason to believe he cared about his birthday. He wasn’t spending it with us long before he was arrested.
This is what he does. He lashes out to make me feel bad because he doesn’t want me here. Because he hates me. It’s what he’s always done, and I’ve grown to expect it.
But I thought we were past that.
I thought when he agreed to go on a date with me, it meant he didn’t hate me anymore. That when he kissed me, it meant he liked me. That when he made plans for after my birthday, he wouldn’t try to ruin the day first.
I guess I was wrong.
I pick up my fork and eat my cake, and I smile when Frank says something to me, but the entire time, I’m trying not to cry.
I can feel him watching me.
While I open my presents, while Joyce records and Frank tells me about the new tool he got for me. When I open the card from his parents containing a hundred-dollar bill. When Addie gives me a painting of our family, me, her, and Ollie.
“I thought we needed an updated one,” she says with a wobbly smile.
And then he gives me his present.
It’s a medium-sized box, and I can tell he tried while he was wrapping it. This must have been before he remembered he doesn’t really like me.
I don’t look at him while I’m unwrapping it.
Inside the box is a birdhouse.
“I made it myself,” he says. “Seemed like something a nerd like you would like.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I know it comes out flat, but there’s nothing I can do about it. His insults don’t feel like banter anymore.
It feels like a knife to the heart.
I stay for another hour, and then I tell Joyce it’s been a long week, and she hugs me, telling me to get some sleep and try not to be sad. I feel terrible for lying to her.
I am sad.
