Chapter 23: Birthday Week

On the Tuesday of Junie's birthday week, Sammy came to dinner with a pie.

Celia carried it up the front walk in both hands, careful not to tip it.

Sammy walked ahead of her in a knit cap, and when he pulled it off in the foyer, his hair had come in as a soft brown fuzz.

"Roderick said there'd be pie," he told me. "He said it in the hospital. I wrote it down."

"He did say that," I said. "We owe you one, so you brought your own."

"Mom says that's a debt in reverse."

"Mom's very smart," Celia said, behind him, and her eyes were wet.

It was nine months since that December Saturday on the oncology floor. He had been home since January, and his scans had been clear for six.

Roderick opened the door of the dining room and held it.

He had come home at five-thirty, the way he had every night that week.

His tie was loose, and there was a gray shadow under each of his eyes.

"I'm tired," he said to me at the sink, low, while the others sat down. "Long day. The Rotterdam people are still sending lawyers."

"Thank you for telling me."

"I'll do the dishes anyway."

"I know you will."

He had been doing them for months.

He said it was practice.

Dinner was loud.

Junie explained to Sammy, with a fork, how a carousel horse was chosen.

"You pick the white one, because the white one goes up and down the most."

"I'm picking the lion," Sammy said. "It's in the rules."

"There's no lion."

"There's a lion on the outside ring. I looked at the picture."

Our son, who was nearly a year old and had opinions, banged a spoon against his tray and shouted a word that was nearly "Dada."

Roderick's fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

"That's a sound, not a word," I told him gently.

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