He Missed Our Daughter's Birthday novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Make a Wish
Randall lights one candle on Birdie's cake, takes a call and leaves, and Stephanie follows his location to a children's hospital where his ex says her sick son might be his; Stephanie goes home to her daughter, and at 1:12 a.m. Randall texts that he's staying.
Birdie's sixth birthday party had thirty-one guests, a bounce house, and a castle cake with three towers.
My husband stood at the head of the table with the lighter in his hand.
I was thirty-one weeks pregnant, and it was the first time I had sat down since breakfast.
My brother held up his phone to film.
"Everybody sing!" he called. "Birdie, make it a good wish!"
Birdie climbed onto her chair in her paper crown and looked up at her father.
Randall lit the first candle.
His phone buzzed on the table next to the cake.
He glanced at the screen, and the color left his face.
"Randall?" I said.
"I have to take this."
"It's her birthday. Can't it wait two minutes?"
"Two minutes," he said, and he was already walking.
He went out the garden doors and across the lawn with the phone against his ear.
Thirty-one people watched him go.
My brother, Dennis, lowered his phone.
I lit the other five candles myself.
"Daddy's coming right back," I told Birdie. "He's on a call."
Randall appeared at the doors again, but he didn't come in.
"Work emergency," he called to me. "Twenty minutes, I swear. Start without me."
Then I heard his car start.
My phone buzzed a moment later.
Randall had written: Emergency at the yard. Twenty minutes. Kiss Birdie for me. Love you.
His laptop bag was still hanging on the back of his chair.
In nine years, he had never gone to a work emergency without it.
"Mommy?" Birdie whispered. "Are we waiting?"
I looked at the candles melting into the frosting.
"No, baby," I said. "We're singing now."
I sang the whole song with a smile on my face, and thirty-one people sang it with me.
Birdie blew out all six candles and closed her eyes tight over her wish.
She didn't look at the empty chair, and I loved her so much it hurt to breathe.
Randall's twenty minutes became an hour and ten.
I cut the cake. I handed out the favor bags. I told two mothers and an aunt that he had been called in to work.
Every one of them nodded, and none of them believed me.
When the last car left, Birdie fell asleep on the couch with her crown on and a plate of cake in her lap.
Dennis picked up the plate and set it on the table.
"Open the app," he said quietly. "The one where you share locations."
I already had it open.
Randall's blue dot was not at the yard.
It was on Dunmore Street, at Rowan Children's Hospital.
"Stay with her," I said.
"Steph, let me drive you."
"Stay with her."
I drove there with both hands on the wheel, and I didn't turn the radio on.
At the fourth-floor elevator, a security guard looked at his clipboard.
"Mrs. Reeve? Your husband's on the family list for room 412. Down the hall, on the left."
I walked down the hall with one hand on my stomach.
Through the window of 412, I saw a bed with a very small boy in it.
His head was almost bald, and he was holding a drawing pad.
Randall sat beside him with his sleeves rolled up.
Beside Randall was a blonde woman in a grey cardigan, and she turned around before I could knock.
"Stephanie," she said, and she stood up at once. "Oh, thank God. I didn't think you'd come. Please, sit. You shouldn't be on your feet."
She pulled the chair out for me herself.
"I'm Regina," she said. "I'm so sorry about tonight. I didn't know who else to call, Randy."
Nobody had ever called my husband Randy.
I sat down because my back was killing me.
"This is Jasper," Regina said. "He's five. He relapsed in September, and the doctors say a parent is his best chance for a marrow match."
"A parent," I said.
Regina's eyes went to Randall.
"Jasper might be his," she said. "I never told him. I didn't know how."
I looked at my husband.
Randall looked at the floor.
"Stephanie, I don't know that he's mine," he said. "I swear I don't. Nobody does until the test."
"And you left Birdie's party for a boy you don't know is yours."
"He's a sick kid, Steph. He could die."
The boy in the bed looked from his mother to me.
"Hi," Jasper said softly. "Is that the baby's mom? I drew her a picture."
I stood up slowly.
"Take the test tonight," I said to my husband. "Then come home and tell me the truth."
"Stephanie, please. Stay. Let me explain."
"I'm going home to our daughter. She's waiting to ask where you were."
I walked out and didn't look back.
He didn't follow me.
At 1:12 in the morning, I was lying awake next to a cold pillow when my phone buzzed.
Randall had written: Staying with Jasper. Don't wait up. I love you.
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