“Hey, Mom. Happy birthday, of course. Listen, we’re stuck in dead‑stop traffic heading out to the house. It’s awful. Could you start setting out the food, please? We don’t want to show up and nothing’s ready. And keep an eye on Dad so he doesn’t drink too much before we get there. You know how he is.”
She spoke fast, already irritated, as if my birthday were just another item in her overcrowded calendar, wedged between a client call and her son’s soccer practice.
I wasn’t the birthday girl. I was the catering staff for the event held in my honor.
“It’s fine, Zora. Don’t worry. Everything will be ready.”
I hung up. There was no sharp sting in my chest. That had burned out long ago. All that remained was a quiet, transparent emptiness, like the air after a late‑summer rain.
By five in the afternoon, the house was full of guests—old friends, relatives, neighbors from our cul‑de‑sac, Langston’s business associates from downtown. Cars lined our driveway and spilled onto the street. Women carried bundt cakes and store‑bought pies, men brought wine and jokes.
Everyone spoke warm words, offered flowers, and raved about my peach cobbler and my garden.
I smiled, accepted congratulations, and poured sweet tea out of the heavy glass pitcher. I played my part: the happy wife, the devoted mother, the gracious mistress of this big, welcoming Southern home. A role I had written and rehearsed for half a century.
