Chapter 24: Three Candles

Jamie turned three on a Saturday in April, at a long table set on the lakeside terrace.

Vittorio had insisted on the table.

He had also insisted on the cake, a tall brown thing with three candles and a train on top.

He claimed the train was made of marzipan.

"It is brass," said Jamie, inspecting it.

"It is marzipan."

"Shiny."

"It is shiny marzipan, and you may not lick it until after the song."

Rocco stood behind Jamie's chair with a camera he did not know how to use.

He pointed it at the cake, the sky and his own thumb.

"You're holding it backwards," Quentin said.

"I am not."

"The lens is facing you."

Rocco looked at the camera.

He turned it around, and he did not say a word, and the corner of his mouth went up.

I sat at the end of the table in a yellow dress with the bangle on my left wrist.

The gold seam caught the light every time I moved my hand.

Nobody at that table had been invited out of duty.

I had counted them, one by one, that morning in the kitchen.

My stepfather had come from New York with a cane he leaned on less each month.

My stepbrother had come with a wrapped box he would not let anyone shake.

The man I'd loved was in shirtsleeves, with a candle lighter in his hand and cake on his cuff.

And in the middle of them, in a paper crown, was the boy I'd hidden for three years.

"Mama," Jamie said. "Candles."

"I'm coming."

"Now."

"Now," I said, and I got up and came around the table.

Quentin lit the candles with a steady hand.

We sang, badly, in three keys and two languages. Vittorio sang in Italian and Rocco sang half a beat behind him.

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