Pas de Deux

..........I didn’t have any friends, so i had never had a birthday party. I didn’t want a party. I wanted to celebrate with Luke. Alone, but my mother would never have that.
..........“What did you do to celebrate your birthday when you were my age?” i asked my mother.
..........She hesitated for a long time. The pause set me on fire. She could see me getting red and began to stammer out an answer. “W-we w-would have cake and um, presents.”
..........“Who’s we?”
..........“Your aunts and my parents.”
..........“Just family?”
..........“Yes, and some, a couple of friends.”
..........“Do you have pictures?”
..........This question threw my mother off the track of lies she was telling and the truth accidentally spilled out. “Yes,” and then, to cover, “but i think Aunt Sarah has them. I’ll ask her to bring them the next time she visits.”
..........“Did you have a lot of friends when you were my age?
..........“Not a lot, just a normal amount,” my mother’s voice faltered on the word “normal” and trailed off.
..........My mother would not be asking her sister to bring any photographs. She didn't want to make me jealous. I imagined the pictures, sepia-toned, fading. My mother’s wildly curly hair probably even more untamed. Missing a tooth, but still smiling with her mouth wide open and unapologetic. Surrounded by a dozen, scores, hundreds of thousand missing-toothed, wide-mouthed children who were smiling solely because they were happy to be so close to my mother. All of them swimming in my grandparents lake. So many of them that there’s no room to swim.
..........We were in the living room doing my favorite chore: folding the linens. It was a pas de deux. Mother and daughter standing on opposite ends of the stage, separated by the expanse of the red cotton sheet. Coming together in time. Our hands brushing each other without acknowledging each other. Mother grabbing the open end as i slid my hands to the closed end. Stepping away and coming together again. Hands brushing without noticing. Again till we stand centerstage together, the sheet thin an unprotective. I take the folded sheet to the couch and my mother pulls a frsh one from the laundry basket. We did this in silence for a few more sheets. ..........My mother looked as if she would have given up her happy, popular childhood in exchange for a normal daughter.
..........“Are Aunt Sarah and Aunt Denise coming for my birthday?”
..........“Of course.”
..........What i was about to ask was unfair and manipulative. I didn’t know what manipulative meant, but i knew how it felt.
..........“Can we all go to the Overhead Diner?”
..........“My mother was ashen. “I don’t know if that’s a really great place to celebrate. And your aunts don’t usually go up ther.”
..........This was too easy. “But it’s my birthday, isn’t?”

..........
..........In the few family photographs i had seen, my mother was clearly the pretty one. Not just because of how she looked. There was a radiance inside my mother that shined out of the pores of her skin. If her sisters looked pretty next to her, it was because she had pretty to spare.
..........Underdogs like my Aunt Sarah and Aunt Denise love a good fall from glory. On my tenth birthday at the Overhead Diner, any pretty my mother had to spare was hidden beneath her shame. My aunts had made a lazy effort not to dress like they made a lot of money. But they had no split ends. No obvious line of make-up between the jaw and the neck. No safety pins to secure a dress that used to fit snugly and (perhaps?) seductively.
..........My aunts did not blend and my mother was embarrassed that she blended so well. “Stop fidgeting,” she said to me. “What’s wrong?”
..........I was looking around for Luke. He always said hello. I blamed the presence of my aunts for the lack of Luke’s. He knew they were the kind of people who would treat him different because he only had one hand. Luke’s grandmother came to our table to take our order.
..........“It’s my birthday!” I announced.
..........“Well, happy birthday!” she said cheerily. “Luke’s gonna be so disappointed that he missed you.”
I had been splitting my attention between hating my aunts and looking for Luke. All at one, everything that i was became terribly focused on his grandmother.
..........“He’s not here?” My voice was burning.
..........“No, honey, he only works days.”
..........The only water i was used to: tears. I held my breath to dam them in and passed out.
..........Happy birthday to me.