A Happy Family Without Me novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Cake
At Poppy's eighth birthday party Garner arrives with Lorna's two children, says they need a father more than his wife does, and leaves while Poppy begs; Fenella orders him out of her grandmother's house, and Poppy says her room at the pink-door house is already painted.
At two o'clock on Poppy's eighth birthday, nineteen people stood around my backyard table and waited for my husband.
The cake had been sitting there for ten minutes with the candles lit.
Lorna had set it up that morning, because Lorna set everything up.
She had come at nine with a balloon arch in the back of her van and a florist's roll of ribbon.
She had spent an hour on a ladder tying yellow balloons to my grandmother's fence while I stirred lemonade.
"Garner never misses anything that matters," she said now, and squeezed my arm.
I had the text on my phone. It said: Running late, don't hold the cake.
"He's never late for Poppy," I told her.
"Then he's almost here," Lorna said. "Light them again, I'll get the lighter."
She went toward the side gate. I watched her go.
Poppy stood at the head of the table in her yellow dress, with her braids done and her hands behind her back.
She had been looking at the gate for twenty minutes.
"We can sing without him," I said.
"He said he'd do the high part," Poppy said.
Then the gate opened.
Garner came through it with a small boy and a smaller girl, one in each hand.
Lorna came behind them, carrying a gift bag and a bag of ice.
Nobody sang.
The boy let go of Garner's hand and walked straight to the card table, where Poppy's birthday cards sat in a basket with a pen.
He picked up the pen in his left hand and wrote something on a card, slowly, with his tongue between his teeth.
Garner walked over and signed the same card beside him.
He used his left hand too.
I was holding a cake knife, and I remember thinking that I should put it down.
"Everybody," Garner said, "I'm sorry about the timing."
He looked at the guests, one at a time.
"I need to say something and I don't want to say it behind anyone's back."
"Garner," I said.
"Fenella, let me finish."
He took a breath and put a hand on the boy's head.
"These two have been through a lot. Their father left before the little one was walking."
Lorna's eyes were wet. She was looking at me.
"I can't watch them grow up with nobody," Garner said. "I'm going to be there for them. I'm moving in with Lorna and the kids, starting today."
The balloons moved on the fence.
My neighbor's mother put her hand over her mouth.
"You're what?" said Maeve, my sister, from somewhere behind me.
"It's not about Fenella," Garner said. "It's about doing the right thing for children who need a father."
Poppy ran to him.
She grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands.
"Daddy, no," she said. "It's my birthday. Stay. Please stay. I'll be good."
"You're always good, sweetheart."
"Then stay."
He knelt down and kissed her forehead.
"I'll see you very soon, I promise."
He stood up and he didn't look at me.
He took the boy by one hand and the girl by the other.
Lorna touched my shoulder as she passed. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I wanted to tell you gently."
I looked at her hand on my shoulder.
I had given her a key to my house two years ago, for emergencies.
"Garner," I said.
He stopped at the gate.
"The house on Lindell Street was my grandmother's," I said, loudly enough for the people at the back. "She left it to me. Your name isn't on it."
"Fenella, don't do this now."
"You did this now."
Someone near the cake started to cry. It wasn't me.
"Your bag will be on the porch by dark," I said. "Come get it, and don't come in."
So I walked into my own house, pulled his suitcase from the hall closet, and started filling it.
Shirts. Shoes. His razor. The framed photo of him with his regional award.
I put all of it on the front porch while nineteen guests carried their plates to their cars.
Maeve took Poppy upstairs for a bath.
When I went up an hour later, Poppy was in bed with her yellow dress still on, her face turned to the wall.
I sat down beside her.
"Mom," she said, in a very small voice. "Can I tell you something?"
"Anything."
"Daddy said not to. But there's a house with a pink front door, and there's a room in it just for me."
She pulled the blanket over her mouth.
"It's already painted yellow," she said. "He said it was going to be a surprise."
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