Chapter 24: A Real Cake

I opened the door but not the screen.

My mother stood on the porch in the yellow light, and my father stood one step below her with his bicycle against the rail.

"It's midnight," I said.

"I know," Mom said. "I couldn't sleep. I wanted to see it once more, before tomorrow."

"I came to ask if I could take the boxes early," Dad said. "I didn't know she'd be here."

"I wasn't asking to come in," Mom said. "I only wanted to stand on the porch."

I looked at them through the mesh.

They looked smaller than they had in May.

"The porch is fine," I said. "The house is closed tonight. Ten o'clock tomorrow, both of you. Not before."

"Hazel..."

"Good night, Mom. Good night, Dad."

I shut the door and turned the brass key. It went all the way around.

I stood in the dark hall with my forehead against the wood and listened to them go down the steps.

At nine the next morning, the kitchen smelled like brown butter.

Maisie stood on a chair at the counter in an apron that came to her ankles, cracking eggs into a bowl.

Lacey measured flour with her tongue between her teeth.

Kenzie leaned on the refrigerator, eating the batter off a spoon. "It's not odd," she said. "The green icing. It's the best thing I've ever done."

"It was your idea first," I said.

"I know. I'm just saying."

Grandma's card stood propped against the sugar jar.

I frosted the cake myself, in thick green swirls, and Maisie put eighteen candles on it.

"Late is better than never," she said, very seriously.

At ten o'clock sharp, the knocker sounded.

I went to the door with the two thin envelopes in my hand.

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