Then at the apron hanging in the distant kitchen.
“This is different.”
“Yes,” Sebastian said. “It is.”
“I want the big bit.”
“That might influence your cutting.”
“It probably will.”
They carried the plates together.
Teddy gave Mara a slice with too much icing.
Rose received the piece with the small sugar flag.
Nell asked whether she could eat the sailboat.
Teddy said they should split it because she helped retrieve his real one from the reeds.
Nobody awarded him points.
Nobody praised him as though kindness were surprising.
When he finished, he sat down and ate his own cake.
Later, after the guests left, Sebastian found him at the table beside the model boat.
A single candle had been overlooked near the fruit bowl.
Teddy picked it up.
“We missed one.”
“There were nine on the cake.”
“I know. This was extra.”
Sebastian sat beside him.
His son turned the candle between his fingers.
“Can I tell you last year’s wish?”
“You told me you wanted Mum to have cake.”
“That was the second one.”
Sebastian waited.
Teddy looked at the empty plates.
“The first one was that you’d let me sit.”
For a moment, Sebastian could not answer.
His son looked up quickly.
“I don’t wish that now.”
Sebastian reached across the table.
Teddy placed his hand in his.
“What did you wish this year?”
The boy smiled.
“That my boat stops going into weeds.”
“A sensible wish.”
“And that you don’t make the eggs too dry tomorrow.”
“That seems ambitious.”
Teddy laughed.
Then he leaned against his father’s shoulder.
The room was untidy.
There were crumbs beneath the chairs.
A blue smear crossed the edge of the tablecloth.
Somewhere in the kitchen, the dishwasher began its steady hum.
Nobody needed the evening to look perfect anymore.
Sebastian rested his cheek briefly against his son’s hair.
A year earlier, he came home to find Teddy serving everyone else, trying to earn a place that had always been his.
He could not make that evening disappear.
He could answer it in the life that followed.
