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I’d even lie awake at night staring at the leaking flaps of the rug tent she’d built, listening to the music of the festival and the crackling fires outside, where grown-ups debated self-actualization, and I’d wonder, did finding yourself always mean there wasn’t enough to eat?
But then my birthday would come and my mum would find us a friend’s flat or a rambly cottage to stay in for a week or two, and she’d stir hot chocolate on the stove and bake me lemon chiffon and orange-and-almond Victoria sponge.
There’d be a bowl of forbidden party nibbles—forbidden on account of them being consumeristic. Chocolate Smarties, Cadbury Buttons, Kinder Eggs.
The little toy inside the egg was my birthday present. Twice it was a two-pence-size yellow plastic animal of indeterminate species, with a smashed face and malformed knees. Once it was a car whose wheels didn’t spin.
There’s a bowl full of Kinder Eggs now on the sitting-room coffee table, right next to a three-tiered lemon chiffon cake, pink birthday candles ready to be lit.
The chateau, being hundreds of years old and the home of generations of Abrys, is part-comfy house, part-museum, and part-entertainment showpiece. The sitting room leans toward shabby comfy and is our favorite place to lounge. There are two lumpy avocado-green and orange-striped couches from Grandpa’s fifties fever and a boxy walnut coffee table.
Mila convinced me to buy a pair of pink beanbag chairs and a massive projection screen for movie night. The screen hangs on the wall opposite the stone fireplace.
There are a few wooden chairs with cross-stitched padding from the early 1900s—evidence that one of our great-great-aunts loved stitching spaniels and chubby babies in cloth nappies. There are shelves lining the walls with old clothbound books, and random artifacts from around the world (an Abry from the 1880s went on a world tour and brought back art for inspiration). A few portraits hang on the walls, mostly men with pocket watches who look a lot like Daniel in old-fashioned clothing.
It’s a hodgepodge shabbily comfy room, a dichotomy to the curated splendor of the public rooms. My mum lived here for three months with my dad before their divorce, so of course she’d know this is the place to throw a party. She’s draped the walls in multicolored bunting and filled every spare space with wild clover blossoms, giving the room a festive feel.
My mum flings the rest of the confetti over me and a few pieces stick to my lips.
I blow them away.
Behind my mum Daniel throws me a look that says, “I have no idea what’s happening and I’m as shocked as you are.”
Max has a sort of “I’ve just been run over by a lorry” look.
Mila can’t seem to decide between excitement over cake or confusion over her grandma’s sudden appearance and subsequent party.
Annemarie, Mila’s nanny, peers around the hall door, wide-eyed and curious, and then she pops back around the corner when she sees the confetti blizzard raining over me.
“Oh, happy birthday, Moonbeam!” My mum gives me a radiant smile.
I take a moment, gauging her smile, wondering if she’s serious. You can never tell.
“Mum, it’s not my birthday.”
My birthday isn’t for another four months.
She widens her hazel eyes, a mirror of mine. “But itcouldbe. Why are you attached to a specific day? Attachment is the root of pain. Let’s have cake.”
I step forward and hug my mum. “It’s nice to see you.”
She pats my back. “I know.”
My mum pulls away, gripping my arms and studying me. All the while, sweet, sugary scents flow around us. She frowns at whatever she finds in my expression.
“I had a feeling,” she says finally, “and I was right. You need to find yourself, Moonbeam.”
I try to hide my flinch, but since my mum’s holding my arms, she notices it right away. She shakes her head and then steps back.
Mum has red hair, lighter than Mila’s, and it’s faded through the years. Her skin has a translucent quality that makes her look younger than she is. She also has a unique air—one that’s hard to put your finger on. Back when I was in primary school I learned about the alpine swift. It’s a small bird that can stay aloft for up to two hundred days at a time. When I read about that bird I realized that was the feeling my mum gave off. She doesn’t stay and she doesn’t land.
“I’m glad I came.” Mum gives me her brilliant smile again. “You are in dire need of a birthday.”
At that she sweeps her party dress behind her and turns toward the kitchen—and presumably the Victoria sponge.
She stops at Daniel’s disapproving stare. His arms are folded over his chest, his mouth tilted down at the corners.
Daniel’s mom was our dad’s second wife, a glamorous and gorgeous American heiress from New York. She remarried a Texas oil tycoon and left Daniel with Dad shortly after Daniel’s second birthday.
