by all the adults, I said, “You guys, I think Malec Shadowfire needs some birthday cake.” One of the moms nearly broke her own neck in a rush to cut Noah a piece of cake.
I, however, did not get one.
He ate his cake with everyone staring at him, and then the apparent birthday boy said, “I want to open more presents!” That got everyone’s attention and the boy, who, according to the giant poster hanging on the wall, was named Tucker, climbed into a chair to keep opening gifts. And seeing new toys held more appeal than Noah apparently, as the kids migrated over to watch him tear into wrapping paper.
All except for one little girl. She had to be about four or five, her curly brown hair in two pigtails, and she was wearing a Disney Belle dress. Her eyes were enormous and sad-looking. Noah crouched down to her eye level. “Hi.”
“Why did Malec have to die?” she asked, her lower lip trembling. “He was good. He shouldn’t have died.”
If I’d ever had any doubt about Noah’s talent, he quashed it as he shifted into Malec right in front of me. His posture, his voice, even that dangerous glint in his eye. “You’re right, I did choose to be good. And I didn’t go anywhere. See? I’m here.”
The girl rushed forward, throwing her arms around his neck, and I swear, my ovaries exploded. The hug finished and she asked, “Do you want to play Skee-Ball with me?”
“I do.” He stood back up, and she wrapped her tiny hand around one of his fingers, and my heart squeezed at the utter adorableness. I heard him ask, “Are you a princess?” as she led him out into the arcade.
There was a lightness to my whole being, a joy I couldn’t remember feeling before at how happy he looked and how good it felt that I was the one who put that smile on his face. He started playing with the little girl, at one point picking her up so that she could roll the wooden ball up the ramp easier.
How had he so quickly become my favorite person in the whole world?
Then I flashed back to my conversation with Shelby last night. Was I doing this because of a guilty conscience? Trying to fit in a bunch of good memories before I told him the truth?
I was going to tell him. When the time was right. He turned around to grin at me, and I waved back. Not yet. The time wasn’t now.
Then the second birthday party noticed that he was there and emptied out of their party room to come over to him at the Skee-Ball game. He did more pictures and talked to more kids, and I saw when his face shifted from a real smile to a pretend one. He was looking overwhelmed.
I gently pushed my way through the crowd and said, “Sorry, guys! We have to get going. Thanks for letting us come to your parties!”
There was a chorus of sad protests, but I’d brought Noah into this mess, and it was my job to get him back out of it.
One boy seemed particularly upset about Noah leaving—he started screaming and throwing a tantrum. His mother, trying to cajole him into behaving, said, “Maybe if you’re a good boy Malec will come to your birthday party, too.”
Noah’s face darkened, and once we were outside I asked him, “What’s wrong?”
“That mom lying to her kid. I’m not going to be at his birthday.”
“She was just trying to calm him down.”
He shrugged angrily. “I hate lying. My parents always lied to me my entire life to get me to do things.”
My stomach went queasy and my heart beat dangerously hard as I tried to figure out what exactly he meant. “Like about Santa?”
“No. Like one more take. One more hour of rehearsal. You’re almost done shooting for the day. Talk to one more reporter on the red carpet.”
I didn’t know what to say. What could I say? Anything that came out of my mouth would be adding to my ridiculously high amount of hypocrisy.
When we got in the van, he had shaken off his anger and seemed like himself again. “Up to the end, that was fun. I wish I’d experienced it when I was six years old. Or that it had been my actual birthday. Which is ten months from now.”
I caught my breath. Did he . . . did he think we’d still be hanging out ten