Love + Family: The Birthday

by Ashley Barron

  My son will get to watch that absurd reality show, thinking I’ll never be the wiser. My daughter, who greatly aspires to be sixteen, will spend the evening being dazzled by stories about high school. And the babysitter, about to get royally paid for spending the evening texting half the teens in our zip code, will be adored by all present.

  As I listen to hurried chatter of excited voices, my eyes remain on the now-empty spot on the kitchen floor. Is this what it will feel like when they’ve gone off into the world? Will I still hear their laughter echoing in this house?

  “I love you.” My husband’s words are soft in the quiet room. I know the exact look on his face when he speaks with that tone—the tone he’s been using lately when he talks about us having another child, one more child, before no more are possible.

  I love this man. I love seeing his sleepy eyes in the morning. I love holding his body against mine in the night. I love to hear him tell the same stories over and over again.

  And I love his children.

  One more?

  Yes.

  The word crosses my lips just as the dog, her mood much improved, comes flying into the kitchen. She dances, and whines, and slobbers until my husband relents and reaches for her leash. I always get a good laugh out of their little routine; as far as I’m concerned, she’s the one taking him for a walk.

  But I do wish, just this once, her timing had been better.

  “Cakes,” my husband says, using the nickname he gave me back when we were dating. “We can’t be late. We’ve got theater tickets, remember?”

  He says the words proudly.

  I know he’s lying.

  Today is my birthday. I am one giant step closer to a number that used to seem impossibly far away. I remember all the penny-wishes I used up as a kid, trying to get to double digits faster.

  And now I keep reaching for a pause button that doesn’t exist.

  I don’t necessarily want to go back in time. Every now and again, I just want to stop it from moving forward. Too much is out of focus, happening too fast.

  I won’t know what it’s like to live these years until they have long since passed me by.

  Right now, I’m not aware of the background sounds and smells, the details of images that will take center stage when my eyes no longer see much, and my legs won’t carry me anywhere worth going.

  Maybe that’s why life is lived on fast-forward. Maybe that’s why we’re not able—not designed—to pause, to catch our breaths, to gain perspective. Perhaps we are each walking around with giant nets, capturing every detail that can be collected. Somewhere along the line, these details are turned into memories that are so real we can touch them and hold them, just as we ourselves used to be held.

  They become the liquid gold of old age.

  The healing tonic no lab can create, no doctor can prescribe, no talent can fake.

  “Cakes? The theater?” My husband points to my robe.

  I look at him, trying to absorb every detail about him, about this minute.

  You see, tonight is my surprise birthday party. He thinks I don’t know. He’s been twisting himself into knots for weeks trying to hide the evidence.

  I’ve enjoyed every adorable moment of it.

  “I’m so impressed you got theater tickets for my birthday!” I kiss him. It never hurts to play along, not when he’s gone to so much trouble to honor me. “Give me ten minutes!”

  I climb the stairs and pad softly down the hall to our master bedroom. Earlier, I’d pulled my favorite cocktail dress out of my packed closet and noticed it looked rumpled from being crushed against other clothes. The hour had been far too late to dash to the cleaners and beg for mercy, so I’d steamed up the shower and hooked my dress over the glass door to try and freshen it up a bit.

  The truth is, I don’t really didn’t care if it isn’t crisp and perfect. What’s a wrinkle or two, anyway?

  How easy it is to be cavalier when the creases are in my clothes.

  I flip on the bathroom light and position myself in front of the mirror. The lines in my forehead stare back at me. So do the grooves in the skin around my eyes and mouth. My husband says he likes them, says they are evidence of a happy life.

  I make faces at my reflection. As long as I’m not smiling or laughing, the wrinkles aren’t too noticeable, I decide. But who chooses a life—or a week or a day—without laughter simply to mask the passing of time?

  The shoes I’d planned to wear have disappeared. With a little time and effort, I’m certain I could locate them in one of my daughter’s preferred hiding places. But time is what I don’t have right now. I don’t even have the time to get annoyed.

  The dog, likely in protest of the toy-washing incident, has licked my patchwork evening bag—a prized bargain I unearthed years back at the outlets—from top to bottom. Not wanting to touch it, I use my toes to tuck it under the bed and out of sight.

  The jewelry I’d selected with such enthusiasm this afternoon no longer appeals to me. I always wear the same earrings, anyway. Gold and dangly, neither fancy nor casual. They were my anniversary gift from my husband the year our daughter was born. I still tell him he overspent, but to his satisfaction I wear them almost every day.

  “He loves you” they seem to sing out to me when they catch the light and shine it on my reflection in the mirror. They make me happy, remind me of him.

  Through the open bathroom door I hear my husband call out my name. I toss my robe aside and pull the dress from its hanger. Mindful of my fresh lipstick, I carefully lower it over my head, and take satisfaction in the bright color and good fit of the fabric.

  “Cakes!” The urgency in my husband’s voice increases. “Cakes, we’ll be late. You look beautiful even in your bathrobe. You always look beautiful. We need to get on the road soon—traffic and all that.”

  Knowing this man as I do, loving him, our children, our life, I suspect his main concerns are as follows: his excitement to surprise me—his beloved wife, the mother of his children—with a special evening he has personally planned; and the urgent pull of his empty stomach.

  But don’t hold me to the order.

  I pull the last of the Velcro rollers from my bangs, give my hair a quick brush, a few pats, and I’m ready. My fingers pass over the light switch as I’m leaving the room. Happy birthday, I say to myself.

  Wearing my fancy dress, my not so fancy earrings, my wrong color shoes, and my everyday purse slung across my shoulders, I step out into the hall looking much the way I always do: quality, well-made pieces that weren’t put together in quite the right way.

  Me. In a nutshell.

  At the top of the stairs, I stop and listen to the sounds of my world floating up from below. These are my real gifts, my liquid gold.

  I hear them with my heart. I store them in my soul.

  I think of the memories we’ve made together, of the memories yet to come.

  And I am no longer afraid of the years already gone by.

  All that I have now, at this very moment, will again be mine. Yes, a long time from now—when I am an old, old woman—my life will be returned to me, to hold, to savor, to love again.