Chapter 15: Grown-Up Hours, Live

"Happy birthday, Neil's wife," Shannon said brightly.

Her eyes were red under the makeup.

"You brought the cake," I said.

"I promised."

"Put it on the dining table. Then stay where I can see you."

She went past me with the cake held high.

Neil spotted her from across the room and his smile flickered.

He crossed to her fast, and I heard him hiss, "What are you doing here?"

"Maggie invited me," Shannon said, and she set the cake down between the napkins and the plastic forks.

Neil looked at me over her shoulder.

I smiled at him.

Then I went and stood by the television, next to Ian, who kept his hands in his pockets.

At half past seven Neil's mother tapped a glass with a fork, and the room hushed.

"Speech," a man called from the back. "Birthday boy, speech!"

Neil raised his beer and stepped into the middle of the floor.

"Thank you all for coming," he said. "I mean it. I've got good friends and a good house."

A few people laughed.

"And I've got a wife who does everything. She planned all this. She's the reason any of us have clean socks."

He lifted the beer toward me.

"To Maggie. Best free help a man ever had."

It was a joke, and some of them laughed at it.

Neil's mother did not laugh.

Kristen, by the window, had gone white.

"Thank you, Neil," I said.

I picked up the remote from the arm of the sofa.

"I have a present for you. It's the one thing I thought you'd really want."

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