The Life I Chose novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Thirty, Again

"Whose idea was it, then?" I said.

Kendall smiled at me in the mirror.

"Ask him," she said. "Ask him who found you."

She unlocked the door and walked out.

I stood there with my wet hands dripping on the tiles.

When I came out, the window table was empty except for a ring light shining at the ceiling and four half-eaten avocado toasts.

By that night the live had six million views.

Not one of the clips was Kendall crying anymore.

All of them were me saying "Her brother Holt was thirteen."

On Monday the restaurant is closed.

Ruthie texted me at four.

"Come to work at seven. Wear something nice. Don't ask questions."

"Is this an intervention?"

"It's worse. Seven."

At seven I pushed open the restaurant's back door and the whole place yelled "Surprise!" at me in the dark.

Then the lights came on.

The long room was full of everyone I loved.

The line cooks in clean shirts.

The hostess, the two other servers, the dishwasher.

The owner, at the head of the big table, in a tie.

My mother, all the way from Pawtucket, in her church cardigan, already crying.

Ruthie on a chair, holding up a hand-painted banner that said HAPPY 30TH (TAKE 2).

And Daniel by the wood oven, with his hands in his pockets, looking like a man who'd been caught.

"Whose idea was this?" I said.

Every single person pointed at Daniel.

"Traitors," he said.

"You never got a birthday," Ruthie said. "You got a rehearsal dinner and a breakup on a ten-foot screen. That doesn't count."

"It counted a little," I said.

"It counted for the internet," said the dishwasher.

My mother came over and grabbed my face in both hands.

"I always said that boy had cold feet," she said.

"You never said that."

"I thought it very loudly."

The cooks had made everything I like.

Burrata, the wood-oven clams, the lamb we should have served at my rehearsal dinner, and a cake Ruthie swore she baked herself and absolutely didn't.

It had thirty candles and one small plastic diamond ring stuck in the top tier.

I laughed so hard I had to sit down.

The owner opened a bottle from the very back of his cellar, a Brunello older than me, and poured it himself.

"For the sommelier," he said. "Who will not tell me it's corked."

"It's a little corked."

"It's not corked."

"It's perfect," I said, and it was.

Daniel sat next to my mother.

Within twenty minutes she was showing him my third-grade school picture on her phone.

"She had the bangs," my mother said. "We don't talk about the bangs."

"I'd like to talk about the bangs," Daniel said.

"You two need to be separated," I said.

After the cake, he slid an envelope across the table to me.

Plain white.

My name on the front, in neat capitals.

"You said write it," he said.

My throat closed up.

I put it in my bag without opening it.

I wanted to be alone when I did.

At ten the hostess tapped my shoulder.

"There's someone at the front window."

Holt was standing out on the sidewalk under the streetlight.

No coat.

He'd been watching through the glass long enough to see the banner and the cake and Daniel's hand on the back of my chair.

Daniel started to get up.

"No," I said. "Stay."

I went out alone.

It was cold, and he looked terrible.

Unshaven, his good shirt wrinkled.

"Nobody at the firm will talk to me," he said. "My father won't take my calls. Kendall cries all day. The landlord at the rental saw the video and wants us out by Friday."

"I'm sure you'll find somewhere."

"I came to say I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"That's it? Okay?"

"What do you want me to say, Holt?"

He looked through the window at the long table.

At my mother laughing with Daniel.

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