Condemned by My Sister novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Birthday

On the first anniversary of my birthday, Marianne went to the cemetery alone.

It was a bright cold morning with the maples going orange, and she carried a cake box in one hand.

It was small and white, tied with red string.

She walked up the hill past the rows of stones to mine, which was plain and gray and new.

Someone had planted yellow flowers at the foot of it.

The woman from the laundromat had done that, and had not said so.

I came up the path a step behind her and stood on the grass.

Marianne put down the box and sat on the cold ground with her coat around her knees.

She took off the string and opened the lid.

It was a single slice.

It was vanilla, with a great deal of frosting, and blue letters that said only "Eli."

"I couldn't get the whole word," she said. "The baker was out of the long tip."

She laughed at herself, and wiped her eye with a gloved hand.

"I wanted to bring you something sweet, and I wanted it to be this one."

"You said too much frosting, in your message."

I felt it in my throat, where I had nothing.

She set the slice on a paper plate and put the plate on the grass in front of the stone.

"I'm going to tell you things," she said. "I should have told them to you when you could argue."

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