Nearly My Birthday Quotes

A BIRTHDAY Something continues and I don't know what to call it though the language is full of suggestions in the way of language but they are all anonymous and it's almost your birthday music next to my bones these nights we hear the horses running in the rain it stops and the moon comes out and we are still here the leaks in the roof go on dripping after the rain has passed smell of ginger flowers slips through the dark house down near the sea the slow heart of the beacon flashes the long way to you is still tied to me but it brought me to you I keep wanting to give you what is already yours it is the morning of the mornings together breath of summer oh my found one the sleep in the same current and each waking to you when I open my eyes you are what I wanted to see.

Kästner was one reason I called my book barge the Literary Apothecary,” said Perdu. “I wanted to treat feelings that are not recognized as afflictions and are never diagnosed by doctors. All those little feelings and emotions no therapist is interested in, because they are apparently too minor and intangible. The feeling that washes over you when another summer nears its end. Or when you recognize that you haven’t got your whole life left to find out where you belong. Or the slight sense of grief when a friendship doesn’t develop as you thought, and you have to continue your search for a lifelong companion. Or those birthday morning blues. Nostalgia for the air of your childhood. Things like that.

Two thousand years ago the night sky looked completely different, and so when you get right down to it, the Greek conceptions of star signs as related to birth dates are grossly inaccurate for today's day and age. It's called the Line of Procession: back then the sun didn't set in Taurus, but in Gemini. A September 24 birthday didn't mean you were a Libra, but a Virgo. And there was a thirteenth zodiac constellation, Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, which rose between Sagittarius and Scorpio for only four days. The reason it's all off kilter? The earth's axis wobbles. Life isn't nearly as stable as we want it to be.

But the girl shook her head, clucked her tongue in distaste. 'If I marry him, my children will be ugly,' she declared. That night, lying next to Edward in his room, Yaw listened as his best friend told him that he had explained to the girl that you could not inherit a scar. Now, nearing his fiftieth birthday, Yaw no longer knew if he believed this was true.

In the eulogy by the graveside, I told everyone how my sister and I used to sing to each other on our birthday. I told them that, when I thought of my sister, I could still hear her laughter, sense her optimism, and feel her faith. I told them that my sister was the kindest person I;ve ever known, and that the world was a sadder place without her in it. And finally, I told them to remember my sister with a smile, like I did, for even though she was being buried near my parents, the best parts of her would always stay alive, deep within our hearts.

Once upon a time there was a mother who, in order to become a mother, had agreed to change her name; who set herself the task of falling in love with her husband bit-by-bit, but who could n ever manage to love one part, the part, curiously enough, which made possible her motherhood; whose feet were hobbled by verrucas and whose shoulders were stooped beneath the accumulating guilts of the world; whose husband's unlovable organ failed to recover from the effects of a freeze; and who, like her husband, finally succumbed to the mysteries of telephones, spending long minutes listening to the words of wrong-number callers . . . shortly after my tenth birthday (when I had recovered from the fever which has recently returned to plague me after an interval of nearly twenty-one years), Amina Sinai resumed her recent practice of leaving suddenly, and always immediately after a wrong number, on urgent shopping trips.

My birthday is coming up. I was born on March 5th, 1982. Humans have come a long way since then—nearly 30 years, if my math is good. And my math better be good, because if my math’s no good, what’s that leave? I mean aside from English, art, science, social studies, history, geography, P.E., recess, and of course, lunch.


I read it twice, then I said, "Well, why don't you?" "Why don't I what?" "Why don't you wish her many happy returns? It doesn't seem much to ask." "But she says on her birthday." "Well, when is her birthday?" "Can't you understand?" said Bobbie. "I've forgotten." "Forgotten!" I said. "Yes," said Bobbie. "Forgotten." "How do you mean, forgotten?" I said. "Forgotten whether it's the twentieth or the twenty-first, or what? How near do you get to it?" "I know it came somewhere between the first of January and the thirty-first of December. That's how near I get to it.

My birthday is in March, and that year it fell during an especially bright spring week, vivid and clear in the narrow residential streets where we lived just a handful of blocks south of Sunset. The night-blooming jasmine that crawled up our neighborhood's front gate released its heady scent at dusk, and to the north, the hills rolled charmingly over the horizon, houses tucked into the brown. Soon, daylight savings time would arrive, and even at early nine, I associated my birthday with the first hint of summer, with the feeling in classrooms of open windows and lighter clothing and in a few months no more homework. My hair got lighter in spring, from light brown to nearly blond, almost like my mother's ponytail tassel. In the neighborhood gardens, the agapanthus plants started to push out their long green robot stems to open up to soft purples and blues.

The thing about being barren is that you’re not allowed to get away from it. Not when you’re in your thirties. My friends were having children, friends of friends were having children, pregnancy and birth and first birthday parties were everywhere. I was asked about it all the time. My mother, our friends, colleagues at work. When was it going to be my turn? At some point our childlessness became an acceptable topic of Sunday-lunch conversation, not just between Tom and me, but more generally. What we were trying, what we should be doing, do you really think you should be having a second glass of wine? I was still young, there was still plenty of time, but failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under, and I gave up hope. At the time, I resented the fact that it was always seen as my fault, that I was the one letting the side down. But as the speed with which he managed to impregnate Anna demonstrates, there was never any problem with Tom’s virility. I was wrong to suggest that we should share the blame; it was all down to me. Lara, my best friend since university, had two children in two years: a boy first and then a girl. I didn’t like them. I didn’t want to hear anything about them. I didn’t want to be near them. Lara stopped speaking to me after a while. There was a girl at work who told me—casually, as though she were talking about an appendectomy or a wisdom-tooth extraction—that she’d recently had an abortion, a medical one, and it was so much less traumatic than the surgical one she’d had when she was at university. I couldn’t speak to her after that, I could barely look at her. Things became awkward in the office; people noticed. Tom didn’t feel the way I did. It wasn’t his failure, for starters, and in any case, he didn’t need a child like I did. He wanted to be a dad, he really did—I’m sure he daydreamed about kicking a football around in the garden with his son, or carrying his daughter on his shoulders in the park. But he thought our lives could be great without children, too. “We’re happy,” he used to say to me. “Why can’t we just go on being happy?” He became frustrated with me. He never understood that it’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to mourn for it.

I can't promise you that I won't hurt you," he said softly after it became clear I wasn't going to speak. Sincerity flowed from him like water in a river and it nearly broke my heart. "I can't say that I won't ever do something stupid, or forget your birthday or our anniversary or your favorite flavor of ice cream. I'm fallible; I'm gonna make mistakes. But I can promise you that I won't lie to you, and I'll never cheat on you. Your Cat is a part of you. She makes you who you are. I can't ignore that, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. All you need to do is trust me, Riley. That's all I'm asking.

Greg had been nearly out the door, on his way next door to Shari’s birthday party, when the phone rang. “Hi, Greg. Why aren’t you on your way to my party?” Shari had asked when he’d run to pick up the receiver. “Because I’m on the phone with you,” Greg had replied dryly.

Gift Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel the stress on your back shapes your insight this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find you by your marks, he says an imprint But when I summon you, I talk to—I say— my memory of your face. It’s kind of crazy to others. They’re not very interesting he says. When I first came to this country, and now I know the language I say, but I had in a dream spoken it many years previously. That is, not the language of the dead the language of France. I took one year of French in 1964 and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French in a dream all night: I was in the future I moved here in 1992. Country of the more logical than I? though the people of my quartier know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange You do everything alone a woman said to me. There are ways to care without interfering but the French speak of anguish frequently they are conscious of emotional extremity a terrible gift. It’s all a gift, he says . . . some haven’t been opened. I’m not sure he said that it’s nearly my sixty-seventh birthday today though it’s the day of the dead hello we love you they say.

On my twenty-fifth birthday, when I had lived one quarter of a century, I was nearly dead, almost catatonic, without the will to live. By my twenty-sixth birthday, I wanted more than anything to live. I was one year old, an infant born out of a corpse, still with the smell of death on her, but hating death.

Only twice in my nearly fifty years of friendship with David Belasco did he ever disappoint me; and I am glad that experience came early. When I was perhaps seven or eight years old, he promised me, many months before my birthday, that he would give me a pony. What boy would nurse that promise to his bosom for any number of months? When the 12th of August dawned, I was downstairs early, I think before anyone else was up. I looked out at the barnyard. No pony. I waited all day. No pony. I said nothing. No pony. There were other presents, of course, and all the other excitement of a small boy’s birthday: but underneath it I was having my very first experience of a forgotten promise.

When I took it off, I glanced in the mirror behind the dresser, and I nearly screamed when I saw the reflection. Finn was sitting behind me on the bed. His eyes, dark as night, met mine in the mirror, and I could hardly breathe. "Finn!" I gasped and whirled around to look at him. "What are you doing here?" "I missed your birthday," he said, as if that answered my question. He lowered his eyes, looking at a small box he had in his hands. "I got you something." "You got me something?" I leaned back on the dresser behind me, gripping it. "Yeah." He nodded, still staring down at the box. "I picked it up outside of Portland two weeks ago. I meant to get back in time to give it to you on your birthday." He chewed the inside of his cheek. "But now that I'm here, I'm not sure I should give it to you at all." "What are you talking about?" I asked. "It doesn't feel right." Finn rubbed his face. "I don't even know what I'm doing here." "Neither do I," I said. "Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to see you. I just...I don't understand." "I know." He sighed. "It's a ring. What I got you." His gaze moved from me to the engagement ring sitting on the dresser beside me. "And you already have one." "Why did you get me a ring?" I asked tentatively, and my heart beat erratically in my chest. I didn't know what Finn was saying or doing. "I'm not proposing to you, if that's what you're asking." He shook his head. "I saw it and thought of you. But now it seems like poor taste. And here I am, the night before your wedding sneaking in to give you a ring." "Why did you sneak in?" I asked. "I don't know." He looked away and laughed darkly. "That's a lie. I know exactly what I'm doing, but I have no idea why I'm doing it." "What are you doing?" I asked quietly. "I..." Finn stared off for a moment, then turned back to me and stood up. "Finn, I-" I began, but he held up his hand, stopping me. "No, I know you're marrying Tove," he said. "You need to do this. We both know that. It's what's best for you, and it's what I want for you." He paused. "But I want you for myself too." All I'd ever wanted from Finn was for him to admit how he felt about me, and he'd waited until the day before my wedding. It was too late to change anything, to take anything back. Not that I could have, even if I wanted to. "Why are you telling me this?" I asked with tears swimming in my eyes. "Because." Finn stepped toward me, stopping right in front of me. He looked down at me, his eyes mesmerizing me the way they always did. He reached up, brushing back a tear from my cheek. "Why?" I asked, my voice trembling. "I needed you to know," he said, as if he didn't truly understand it himself. He set the box on the dresser beside me, and his hand went to my waist, pulling me to him. I let go of the dresser and let him. My breath came out shallow as I stared up at him. "Tomorrow you will belong to someone else," Finn said. "But tonight, you're with me.

Keller, who devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind, never wavered in her belief that our society needed radical change. Having herself fought so hard to speak, she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union to fight for the free speech of others. She sent $100 to the NAACP with a letter of support that appeared in its magazine The Crisis—a radical act for a white person from Alabama in the 1920s. She supported Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist candidate, in each of his campaigns for the presidency. She composed essays on the women’s movement, on politics, on economics. Near the end of her life, she wrote to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, leader of the American Communist Party, who was then languishing in jail, a victim of the McCarthy era: “Loving birthday greetings, dear Elizabeth Flynn! May the sense of serving mankind bring strength and peace into your brave heart!

So I went inside and told my mum I was going to Aled’s, and she said that was fine because she still needed to catch up on The Great British Bake Off and could I please not be too loud when I came in, and then I grabbed my keys from the bowl near the door and Aled’s birthday card and present from the kitchen table and put some shoes on and I took one last look at myself in the landing mirror. My makeup was pretty crap and my hair had started to fall out of its topknot, but I didn’t really care that much. What were we gonna do, get more drunk in Aled’s lounge?

And I think now, as my fiftieth birthday draws near, about the American novelist Thomas Wolfe, who was only thirty-eight years old when he died. He got a lot of help in organizing his novels from Maxwell Perkins, his editor at Charles Scribner’s Sons. I have heard that Perkins told him to keep in mind as he wrote, as a unifying idea, a hero’s search for a father. It seems to me that really truthful American novels would have the heroes and heroines alike looking for mothers instead. This needn’t be embarrassing. It’s simply true. A mother is much more useful. I wouldn’t feel particularly good if I found another father.

Mom?” Then again, louder. “Mom?” She turned around so quickly, she knocked the pan off the stove and nearly dropped the gray paper into the open flame there. I saw her reach back and slap her hand against the knobs, twisting a dial until the smell of gas disappeared. “I don’t feel good. Can I stay home today?” No response, not even a blink. Her jaw was working, grinding, but it took me walking over to the table and sitting down for her to find her voice. “How—how did you get in here?” “I have a bad headache and my stomach hurts,” I told her, putting my elbows up on the table. I knew she hated when I whined, but I didn’t think she hated it enough to come over and grab me by the arm again. “I asked you how you got in here, young lady. What’s your name?” Her voice sounded strange. “Where do you live?” Her grip on my skin only tightened the longer I waited to answer. It had to have been a joke, right? Was she sick, too? Sometimes cold medicine did funny things to her. Funny things, though. Not scary things. “Can you tell me your name?” she repeated. “Ouch!” I yelped, trying to pull my arm away. “Mom, what’s wrong?” She yanked me up from the table, forcing me onto my feet. “Where are your parents? How did you get in this house?” Something tightened in my chest to the point of snapping. “Mom, Mommy, why—” “Stop it,” she hissed, “stop calling me that!” “What are you—?” I think I must have tried to say something else, but she dragged me over to the door that led out into the garage. My feet slid against the wood, skin burning. “Wh-what’s wrong with you?” I cried. I tried twisting out of her grasp, but she wouldn’t even look at me. Not until we were at the door to the garage and she pushed my back up against it. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. I know you’re confused, but I promise that I’m not your mother. I don’t know how you got into this house, and, frankly, I’m not sure I want to know—” “I live here!” I told her. “I live here! I’m Ruby!” When she looked at me again, I saw none of the things that made Mom my mother. The lines that formed around her eyes when she smiled were smoothed out, and her jaw was clenched around whatever she wanted to say next. When she looked at me, she didn’t see me. I wasn’t invisible, but I wasn’t Ruby. “Mom.” I started to cry. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be bad. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! Please, I promise I’ll be good—I’ll go to school today and won’t be sick, and I’ll pick up my room. I’m sorry. Please remember. Please!” She put one hand on my shoulder and the other on the door handle. “My husband is a police officer. He’ll be able to help you get home. Wait in here—and don’t touch anything.” The door opened and I was pushed into a wall of freezing January air. I stumbled down onto the dirty, oil-stained concrete, just managing to catch myself before I slammed into the side of her car. I heard the door shut behind me, and the lock click into place; heard her call Dad’s name as clearly as I heard the birds in the bushes outside the dark garage. She hadn’t even turned on the light for me. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, ignoring the bite of the frosty air on my bare skin. I launched myself in the direction of the door, fumbling around until I found it. I tried shaking the handle, jiggling it, still thinking, hoping, praying that this was some big birthday surprise, and that by the time I got back inside, there would be a plate of pancakes at the table and Dad would bring in the presents, and we could—we could—we could pretend like the night before had never happened, even with the evidence in the next room over. The door was locked. “I’m sorry!” I was screaming. Pounding my fists against it. “Mommy, I’m sorry! Please!” Dad appeared a moment later, his stocky shape outlined by the light from inside of the house. I saw Mom’s bright-red face over his shoulder; he turned to wave her off and then reached over to flip on the overhead lights.

So many people never seemed to think about the consequences of their everyday actions. And then a witch on her broom would have to set out from her bed in the rain in the dead of night because of "I only" and its little friends "I didn't know" and "It's not my fault." "I only wanted to see if the copper was hot . . . " "I didn't know a boiling pot was dangerous . . . " "It's not my fault--no one told me dogs that bark might also bite." And her favorite, "I didn't know it would go off bang"--when it said "goes bang" on the box it came in. That had been when little Ted Cooper had put an explosive banger (another tiny clue) into the carcass of a chicken after his mum's birthday party and nearly killed everybody around the table.

Which philosophers would Alain suggest for practical living? Alain’s list overlaps nearly 100% with my own: Epicurus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Michel de Montaigne, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell. * Most-gifted or recommended books? The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Essays of Michel de Montaigne. * Favorite documentary The Up series: This ongoing series is filmed in the UK, and revisits the same group of people every 7 years. It started with their 7th birthdays (Seven Up!) and continues up to present day, when they are in their 50s. Subjects were picked from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Alain calls these very undramatic and quietly powerful films “probably the best documentary that exists.” TF: This is also the favorite of Stephen Dubner on page 574. Stephen says, “If you are at all interested in any kind of science or sociology, or human decision-making, or nurture versus nature, it is the best thing ever.” * Advice to your 30-year-old self? “I would have said, ‘Appreciate what’s good about this moment. Don’t always think that you’re on a permanent journey. Stop and enjoy the view.’ . . . I always had this assumption that if you appreciate the moment, you’re weakening your resolve to improve your circumstances. That’s not true, but I think when you’re young, it’s sort of associated with that. . . . I had people around me who’d say things like, ‘Oh, a flower, nice.’ A little part of me was thinking, ‘You absolute loser. You’ve taken time to appreciate a flower? Do you not have bigger plans? I mean, this the limit of your ambition?’ and when life’s knocked you around a bit and when you’ve seen a few things, and time has happened and you’ve got some years under your belt, you start to think more highly of modest things like flowers and a pretty sky, or just a morning where nothing’s wrong and everyone’s been pretty nice to everyone else. . . . Fortune can do anything with us. We are very fragile creatures. You only need to tap us or hit us in slightly the wrong place. . . . You only have to push us a little bit, and we crack very easily, whether that’s the pressure of disgrace or physical illness, financial pressure, etc. It doesn’t take very much. So, we do have to appreciate every day that goes by without a major disaster.

I should have felt something—a pang of sadness, a twinge of nostalgia. I did feel a peculiar sensation, like oceanic despair that—if I were in a movie—would be depicted superficially as me shaking my head slowly and shedding a tear. Zoom in on my sad, pretty, orphan face. Smash cut to a montage of my life's most meaningful moments: my first steps; Dad pushing me on a swing at sunset; Mom bathing me in the tub; grainy, swirling home video of my sixth birthday in the backyard garden, me blindfolded and twirling to pin the tail on the donkey. But the nostalgia didn't hit. These weren't my memories. I just felt a tingling in my hands, an eerie tingle, like when you nearly drop something precious off a balcony, but don't. My heart bumped up a little. I could drop it, I told myself—the house, this feeling. I had nothing left to lose.

Surely Ma would come back for her birthday, so the morning after the harvest moon she put on the calico dress and stared down the lane. Kya willed Ma to be walking toward the shack, still in her alligator shoes and long skirt. When no one came, she got the pot of grits and walked through the woods to the seashore. Hands to her mouth, she held her head back and called, “Kee-ow, kee-ow, kee-ow.” Specks of silver appeared in the sky from up and down the beach, from over the surf. “Here they come. I can’t count as high as that many gulls are,” she said. Crying and screeching, the birds swirled and dived, hovered near her face, and landed as she tossed grits to them. Finally, they quieted and stood about preening, and she sat on the sand, her legs folded to the side. One large gull settled onto the sand near Kya. “It’s my birthday,” she told the bird.

The cardboard that he stopped at had been written on in February, 1938. The handwriting, in blue-lead pencil, was his brother Seymour's: My twenty-first birthday. Presents, presents, presents. Zooey and the baby, as usual, shopped lower Broadway. They gave me a fine supply of itching powder and a box of three stink bombs. I'm to drop the bombs in the elevator at Columbia or ‘someplace very crowded’ as soon as I get a good chance. Several acts of vaudeville tonight for my entertainment. Les and Bessie did a lovely soft-shoe on sand swiped by Boo Boo from the urn in the lobby. When they were finished, B. and Boo Boo did a pretty funny imitation of them. Les nearly in tears. The baby sang ‘Abdul Abulbul Amir.’ Z. did the Will Mahoney exit Les taught him, ran smack into the bookcase, and was furious. The twins did B.'s and my old Buck & Bubbles imitation. But to perfection. Marvellous. In the middle of it, the doorman called up on the housephone and asked if anybody was dancing up there. A Mr. Seligman, on the fourth—

So even though she couldn’t remember the date of her birth, one evening when the moon rose swollen and golden from the lagoon, Kya said to herself, “I reckon I’m seven.” Pa never mentioned it; certainly there was no cake. He didn’t say anything about her going to school either, and she, not knowing much about it, was too afraid to bring it up. Surely Ma would come back for her birthday, so the morning after the harvest moon she put on the calico dress and stared down the lane. Kya willed Ma to be walking toward the shack, still in her alligator shoes and long skirt. When no one came, she got the pot of grits and walked through the woods to the seashore. Hands to her mouth, she held her head back and called, “Kee-ow, kee-ow, kee-ow.” Specks of silver appeared in the sky from up and down the beach, from over the surf. “Here they come. I can’t count as high as that many gulls are,” she said. Crying and screeching, the birds swirled and dived, hovered near her face, and landed as she tossed grits to them. Finally, they quieted and stood about preening, and she sat on the sand, her legs folded to the side. One large gull settled onto the sand near Kya. “It’s my birthday,” she told the bird.

DAY 137 Laser Tag “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” ROMANS 8:31 A few years ago my daughter was invited to a laser tag birthday party. She was little, and the laser tag vest and gun were huge, which made it hard for her to play. The first time through, she didn’t do well at all. She was an easy target for the more experienced players, and she got shot—a lot! She was pretty discouraged, but before the next round started, one of the dads handed me a vest and said, “Go get ’em, Dad.” I got the message. I followed close behind my daughter and picked off any kids foolish enough to come near her. By the end of the round, the kids knew that she was no longer an easy target. Her daddy was there, and he was not to be messed with. It was awesome. Her score that round vastly improved, bringing a big smile to her face. When we go into the arena alone, it’s easy to get picked on, singled out, and told that we are destined to fail. But when we go into battle with our heavenly Father’s protection and covering, everything changes. Not only do we have a chance to stay alive, we have a guaranteed win. PRAYER Thank you, Father, for fighting for me, keeping me safe, and helping me come through as a victor. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

less rotted and she nibbles it smiling. “Look,” I show her, “there’s holes in my cake where the chocolates were till just now.” “Like craters,” she says. She puts her fingertop in one. “What’s craters?” “Holes where something happened. Like a volcano or an explosion or something.” I put the green chocolate back in its crater and do ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, boom. It flies up into Outer Space and around into my mouth. My birthday cake is the best thing I ever ate. Ma isn’t hungry for any right now. Skylight’s sucking all the light away, she’s nearly black. “It’s the spring equinox,” says Ma, “I remember it said on TV, the morning you were born. There was still snow that year too.” “What’s equinox?” “It means equal, when there’s the same amount of dark and light.” It’s too late for any TV because of the cake, Watch says 08:33. My yellow hoody nearly rips my head off when Ma’s pulling it. I get into my sleep T-shirt and brush my teeth while Ma ties up the trash bag and puts it beside Door with our list that I wrote, tonight it says Please, Pasta, Lentils, Tuna, Cheese (if not too $), O.J., Thanks. “Can we ask for grapes? They’re good for us.” At the bottom Ma puts Grapes if poss (or any fresh fruit or canned). “Can I have a story?” “Just a quick one. What about… GingerJack?” She does it really fast and funny, Gingerjack jumps out of the stove and runs and rolls and rolls and runs so nobody can catch him, not the old lady or the old man or the threshers or

The thing about being barren is that you're not allowed to get away from it. Not when you're in your thirties. My friends were having children, friends of friends were having children, pregnancy and birth and first birthday parties were everywhere. I was asked about it all the time. My mother, our friends, colleagues at work. When was it going to be my turn? At some point our childlessness became an acceptable topic of Sunday-lunch conversation, not just between Tom and me, but more generally. What we were trying, what we should be doing, do you really think you should be having a second glass of wine? I was still young, there was still plenty of time, but failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under, and I gave up hope. At the time, I resented the fact that it was always seen as my fault, that I was the one letting the side down. But as the speed with which he managed to impregnate Anna demonstrates, there was never any problem with Tom’s virility. I was wrong to suggest that we should share the blame; it was all down to me. Lara, my best friend since university, had two children in two years: a boy first and then a girl. I didn’t like them. I didn’t want to hear anything about them. I didn’t want to be near them. Lara stopped speaking to me after a while. There was a girl at work who told me—casually, as though she were talking about an appendectomy or a wisdom-tooth extraction—that she’d recently had an abortion, a medical one, and it was so much less traumatic than the surgical one she’d had when she was at university. I couldn’t speak to her after that, I could barely look at her. Things became awkward in the office; people noticed. Tom didn’t feel the way I did. It wasn’t his failure, for starters, and in any case, he didn’t need a child like I did. He wanted to be a dad, he really did—I’m sure he daydreamed about kicking a football around in the garden with his son, or carrying his daughter on his shoulders in the park. But he thought our lives could be great without children, too. “We’re happy,” he used to say to me. “Why can’t we just go on being happy?” He became frustrated with me. He never understood that it’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to mourn for it.

The church has never lacked valiant men. On August 15, 1714, the Romanian king Constantin Brincoveanu died a martyr’s death. During the twenty-five years of his reign, he had been a valiant defender of the Christian world against Islam. On Good Friday in 1714, he and his whole household were arrested by the Turkish sultan’s men and taken to Constantinople, where they were put in the notorious Yedikule prison. On his sixtieth birthday, King Brincoveanu was sentenced to death together with his four sons. Before the executioner raised his axe, the sultan said, “I will pardon you if you tell me where the wealth of your country is and if you will deny the Christian faith and convert to Islam.” King Brincoveanu replied: “I will never abandon the Christian faith. I was born in it, have lived in it, and will die in it. I have filled my country with churches, monasteries and hospitals. I will not worship in your mosques, neither I nor my children.” Then he turned to his sons and said: “My beloved, be strong in faith. We have lost all things. Let us not lose our souls as well.” The sultan ordered that the sons should die first. Young Constantin prayed and quietly put his head on the block. As he was beheaded, his father sighed and said, “God, Your will be done.” The next two sons followed. Then Matthew, who was only sixteen, wavered at the sight of the blood and hid himself near his mother. “Follow your brothers,” urged King Brincovaneau. “Do not deny Christ.” The youngster put his head on the block and said to the executioner, “Strike.” The king followed them. Kneeling, he prayed with many tears: “God, accept our sacrifice. For the blood of our martyrdom, I desire that the Romanian principates remain Christian. Amen.

Generally speaking, of course, any pursuit of art in camp was somewhat grotesque. I would say that the real impression made by anything connected with art arose only from the ghostlike contrast between the performance and the background of desolate camp life. I shall never forget how I awoke from the deep sleep of exhaustion on my second night in Auschwitz—roused by music. The senior warden of the hut had some kind of celebration in his room, which was near the entrance of the hut. Tipsy voices bawled some hackneyed tunes. Suddenly there was a silence and into the night a violin sang a desperately sad tango, an unusual tune not spoiled by frequent playing. The violin wept and a part of me wept with it, for on that same day someone had a twenty-fourth birthday. That someone lay in another part of the Auschwitz camp, possibly only a few hundred or a thousand yards away, and yet completely out of reach. That someone was my wife.

Nasir slept with guns by his side and damn near one eye open. No one knew where he lived, no one knew his birthday or any of that other personal shit. “I

That summer, she wrote a birthday letter to my daughter that read, “I hope for your birthday you managed to get those grown-ups to give you a dolls’ house and the cardigan and the pony hair brush you wanted. Don’t believe their excuses.” She wrote similar letters to thousands of other people and always in her own hand. The effect was magical. “Please don’t say anything unkind about her. She’s my friend,” our daughter instructed her father. That, I think, explains the extraordinary outpouring of grief we witnessed when Diana died. Her appeal was as simple as it was unique. Diana touched the child in each and every one of us. She wasn’t the “people’s princess”—she was the people’s friend. The words of a London cabbie still ring in my ears when I think about the week after her death. “We’ll never see the like of her again,” he said as he dropped me off near the ocean of flowers outside Buckingham Palace. He was right. —Ingrid Seward

I’m remembering now that Hannah had said something to Donato this afternoon, while we were trying on clothes at an expensive shop near the Piazza di Spagna, on the crowded Via Condotti. The saleswoman knew Donato well, taking his hands in hers. She picked out outfits for each of us to try on, and I remember being in one of the fitting rooms, deciding if a silk crepe dress could make me look sultry or not, when I heard Hannah tell Donato, My mom and Cilla did not get along. How much could a child know? She was so young during those first few incidents, and then there was a period where we just didn’t see each other. Cards and presents were mailed, always on time. There were a handful of get-togethers for Mom’s birthday, Emily and I were civil to each other by then. Strangers, sure. But perfectly civil. What had Emily said to Hannah about me, about Guy, about our dad’s final days?

On the Birthday of Murtaza Bhutto My nephew drives on a route that crosses alongside 70 Clifton every day since I am in Karachi. It reminds me that when I was a working journalist. I visited the last 70 Clifton in 1977, the resident of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Later, Benazir Bhutto and then Murtaza Bhutto and Fatima Bhutto, during the driving towards Karachi Press Club, I asked my nephew to stop near 70 Clifton, so that we can click a few pics of it. Today is Murtaza Bhutto's Birthday, who became the victim of armed-evil and murdered. I stood outside 70 Clifton, remembering inside the conversations, discussions, and delightful atmosphere, in the Bhutto era. I felt sadness and pain, imagining that time when pleasure, joy, and mob walked around it, but today it was dead-quiet and displayed sadness on its walls, the Birthday existed; however, the figure held that day was not there, and his daughter far away from Pakistan, in exile-life, though, the justice has failed but not the God.

Kneeling down next to an article of clothing, Kevin looked up to see Christine a few feet away, gathering up one of her extravagant lolita dresses. Looking at her like this, the girl really did look cute, like a fragile porcelain doll. As he continued to watch her, his eyes landed on the black choker around her neck. “Isn’t that the choker that I bought you for your birthday a while back?” Kevin asked. Christine paused in her work. Her hand went to her choker. “A-ah, um, yes, it is. I… well, this is my… my favorite choker, so I like to wear it a lot…” Christine’s cheeks flushed once more, but she at least didn’t seem to be blowing her top. “After you, Iris, and Lilian left, I was really lonely. I hadn’t realized how important all of you were to me until you were gone. Ever since that day, ever since you three went off to Greece, I’ve taken to wearing this, because it reminded me of all the good times we’ve shared together.” That was probably the most honest thing he’d ever heard Christine say since she’d confessed her feelings for him. He’d noticed it before, but Christine really was a tsundere. She rarely ever told anyone what she was really thinking, and she covered up her embarrassment with bluster and violence. Moments like this were rare for her. He could count the number of times where she’d been honest with her feelings on one hand and still have fingers left over. “I’m sorry we left you like that,” Kevin apologized. Christine shook her head. “You don’t need to apologize. I know that you didn’t have much of a choice. Had you not left, then…” Then he, Lilian, and Iris would have put everyone in danger. Back then, Lilian had been targeted by the Shénshèng Clan. One of its members, a three-tailed kitsune named Fan had attacked them during Lindsay’s soccer game. Iris had nearly been killed and Kevin had destroyed an entire school building just to defeat Fan. Christine had been there when it happened, so she understood why they had to leave. “Thank you for being so understanding,” he said. Christine quickly turned her back to him. “T-there’s no need to thank me. We’re friends. I-I was only doing what any good friend would do.” Tsundere until the end, Kevin thought with an amused chuckle. “Then, Christine, I’m very glad that you’re my friend.” Christine squeaked. As she sputtered incoherently, Kevin finally grabbed the article that he’d been kneeling over. Blinking when he realized that it felt different than everything else that he’d picked up thus far, he held the article up to study it. “What is this…?” He trailed off. The object in his hands… was Christine’s panties. “Uh…” Kevin could hear his brain sizzling. “W-what are you doing, idiot!? Don’t stare at those!” Christine leapt at him, and Kevin, too shocked by the object in his hands to do anything, let her tackle him to the ground. The panties were thrown from his hands as his back slammed into the floor. Spots appeared in his vision, but they were soon replaced by Christine’s face, which hovered not two inches from his own. Their noses were almost touching. “C-Christine?” He felt his eyes widen as Christine’s face inched a little closer to his. This was bad. This was a very bad situation. Christine was straddling him, and he could feel her thighs touching him, and her body was pressed against him, and… and… Oh, no… Perhaps it was the result of him still being horny because Christine had interrupted him and Lilian while they were having sex, but Kevin felt his arousal skyrocket. Christine felt it, too, because her eyes went even wider and she looked down. He also looked down. Then he looked back up. Their eyes met. Christine’s face was the brightest blue that he’d ever seen. “I can explain this,” Kevin said calmly. “KYA!” The sound of Christine’s scream was followed by a loud slap.

My baby is four years old. I know that calling her a baby is really only a matter of semantics now. It’s true, she still sucks her thumb; I have a hard time discouraging this habit. John and I are finally confident that we already enjoy our full complement of children, so the crib is in the crawlspace, awaiting nieces, nephews, or future grandchildren. I cried when I took it down, removing the screws so slowly and feeling the maple pieces come apart in my hands. Before I dismantled it, I spent long vigils lingering in Annie’s darkened room, just watching her sleep, the length of her curled up small. What seems like permanence, the tide of daily life coming in and going out, over and over, is actually quite finite. It is hard to grasp this thought even as I ride the wave of this moment, but I will try. This time of tucking into bed and wiping up spilled milk is a brief interlude. Quick math proves it. Let me take eleven years - my oldest girl’s age - as an arbitrary endpoint to mothering as I know it now. Mary, for instance, reads her own stories. To her already I am becoming somewhat obsolete. That leaves me roughly 2.373 days, the six and half years until Annie’s eleventh birthday, to do this job. Now that is a big number, but not nearly as big as forever, which is how the current moment often seems. So I tuck Annie in every night. I check on Peter and Tommy, touch their crew-cut heads as they dream in their Star Wars pajamas, my twin boys who still need me. I steal into Mary’s room, awash with pink roses, and turn out the light she has left on, her fingers still curled around the pages of her book. She sleeps in the bed that was mine when I was a child. Who will she grow up to be? Who will I grow up to be? I think to myself, Be careful what you wish for. The solitude I have lost, the time and space I wish for myself, will come soon enough. I don’t want to be surprised by its return. Old English may be a dead language, but scholars still manage to find meaning and poetry in its fragments. And it is no small consolation that my lost letters still manage, after a thousand years, to find their way to an essay like this one. They have become part of my story, one I have only begun to write. - Essay 'Mother Tongue' from Brain, Child Magazine, Winter 2009

Toward the end of the birthday celebration, there was a distinctive pop! from the rec room. We all twisted around. I prayed the rune worked on the house, because there was definitely a god here. Apollo strolled into the kitchen. The first thing I noticed was that his eyes were blue and not that creepy white. “How is my birthday girl?” For some reason, I blushed to the roots of my hair. “Doing good, grandpa.” He smirked as he slid into the seat beside me, easily prying the knife from Deacon’s fingers. “I do not look nearly old enough to be what I am to you.” That was true. He looked like he was in his mid-twenties, which made it all the freakier. “So when were you going to tell me that you spawned me?” “I did not spawn you. I spawned a demigod centuries ago who eventually spawned your mother.” “Can you guys stop saying ‘spawn’?” asked Luke. Apollo shrugged as he carved off an edge of the cake. He handed the knife back to an oddly subdued Deacon. “I did not find it necessary to tell you. It is not like I am going to be bouncing little Alex babies on my knee.” The soda caught in my throat, and I almost spit it back up. Someone chuckled, and it sounded like Luke. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

James settled down to the film. He got a shock when he noticed Nicole and Junior had their arms around each other and an even bigger one a minute later when they started snogging. They were all over each other. Nicole’s leg was up in the air and James kept getting kicked. He got up and moved down two seats so he was sitting on the opposite side of April, away from any flailing limbs. “They’re getting on well,” April grinned. She grinned for a long time. James watched half a minute of the film and she was still grinning at him. He realized the girls had planned an ambush. Nicole already knew Junior fancied her because he’d asked her out before. James felt like he’d been hooked on a line and reeled in, but he checked April out and realized that as traps go, it wasn’t a bad one. April was decent-looking, with long brown hair and fit legs. James slid his hand under the armrest and put it on top of April’s. She twisted in her seat, so she could rest her head on James’s shoulder. James turned around, breathed April’s smell and kissed her on the cheek while she grabbed a few of his Maltesers. They stayed that way for a couple of minutes, until April moved away and blew chocolate breath over him. “So,” she whispered. “Are you gonna snog me or what?” James figured, “What the hell, it’s my birthday.” They snogged for ten minutes, breaking up when the movie got near the end and turned into a big car chase and punch-up that was actually worth watching.

The idea for this book came to me in the last days of December 2015. I live in South Lake Tahoe, but I’d spent Christmas (and my birthday, which is on Christmas) with my family in Colorado. I have two dogs, so instead of flying, I’d driven the grueling sixteen hours. I left Colorado to return home on Dec. 28th, but I didn’t want to do the drive all in one fell swoop, so I stopped at a hotel in Primm, a town near the Nevada/California state line, about thirty minutes from Las Vegas. A couple hours after arriving at the hotel—a grimy, less than desirable room in a dingy casino—my stomach started to gurgle. You know that feeling, the “Dear God, please don’t let this be what I think it is” feeling. But it was.

He looked amused. “Really? Your near-death experience was when your thighs were rubbing together at Disney World on your twenty-fifth birthday—” “I WAS FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE, JACOB.

On the Birthday of Murtaza Bhutto My nephew drives on a route that crosses alongside 70 Clifton every day since I am in Karachi. It reminds me that I was then a working journalist. I visited the last 70 Clifton in 1977, the resident of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, later, Benazir Bhutto, and then Murtaza Bhutto and Fatima Bhutto during the driving towards Karachi Press Club; I asked my nephew to stop near 70 Clifton so that we can click a few pics of it. Today is Murtaza Bhutto's Birthday, and he became the victim of armed evil and murder. I stood outside 70 Clifton, remembering inside the conversations, discussions, and delightful atmosphere in the Bhutto era. I felt sadness and pain, imagining that time when pleasure, joy, and mob walked around it, but today it was dead-quiet and displayed sadness on its walls; the Birthday existed; however, the figure held that day was not there, and his daughter far away from Pakistan in exile-life, though the justice has failed, not the God.

Snowflake,” he said, taking my face in his hands. I held onto his wrists for dear life. “That was the most beautiful birthday I’ve had in a very, very long time. Thank you.” His warm lips pressed to my forehead, but he didn’t let me go. “I loved every second of the movie and the strawberry syrup.” His lips moved down to the tip of my nose… “But mostly I loved being near you.

Serch." Why did he always sound like the one who'd been left, who'd been denied? His fingers brushed Serch's forearm, though, and it damn near took him out. His belly pulled tight and heat crashed over his head like a fucking wave, rocking him and weakening his limbs. "Don't do this," German begged softly. "Gram is gone. It's just you and me now." He clasped Serch's shoulder. "I don't want to fight." All Serch had was the fight, otherwise, he'd be empty, hollowed out by the pain with no one to pass it off to. "Serch." German's whole fucking palm rested on Serch's face. It just sat there, warm and enticing. The best touch a beggar like him could ever hope to have. "I love you." His soul shook. His heart broke all over again. Serch spun away from him, giving German his back as he leaned against the doorframe, head bowed. "Please." That shaky voice sounded close, too close to Serch. "Please." "Fuck your love." Serch faced him with a snarl, chest heaving as he gave up on attempting to control himself. "You love me, German? You kiss me and tell me you want me, and then the instant I turn my back you move across the fucking country with somebody else. You love me? You stay away for years and only speak to me once, once--" He held up a finger. "On the phone." His brother's mouth opened and closed, but Serch refused to let him talk. "I've had birthdays without you. I've taken care of Gram without you. I had to watch her die..." His voice disappeared then, and he had to swallow and swallow before finishing. "Without you." "I'm sorry." "Don't tell me that shit!" Serch exploded. "Tell me how I can stop wanting you, because I do. Tell me how I can stop feeling your body against mine, because I do. Your cries, your taste. I still get off on them." He grabbed the front of his own t-shirt, fisting it, tugging on it. "Tell me how to stop missing you, because I've been lonely since the day you left. And I'm alone now, even with your breath incinerating my skin." "I miss you, too." Fuck! Somebody moved. Somebody must have moved because they were on each other, the press of their bodies so fucking good Serch's eyes watered. German was in his embrace, arms at his nape, fingers gripping his hair. Parted lips on his.

Naturally, we even made snow angels in the backyard as we stumbled around, and passed out. No one cared what we did really, thus far that was the fun of it all. Oh, and Kenneth was just the boy that only wanted one thing from Jenny. He had no personality to speak of… he would hit on me all the time, and sometimes he would get it from me too, or I would be out of the group by her if he said I was the one that wanted it from him. We could break widows out of old buildings and homes, and who would stop us. Sure, we got chased by the cops, yet that was the fun of it too. There is nothing else for us to do. I remember Maddie leaving her handprints in the wet mud, Jenny her butt, and some of her lady-ness, when the town thought it was time for new sidewalks. Yet we all did, something that would last forever, we thought. Maddie drew a few other things too. You can get the picture! All inappropriate… all there for life. She was just crazy like that, like squatting down pissing, and doing number two in the old man Jackups yard. She has more balls than most guys… I knew. Old man Jackups called us, ‘Mindless slutty hooligans’ So that was payback. At the time- I thought like what is wrong with that, we're just having some fun here… your old windbag, like go and sit on your cane! You know what I mean… I think? I remember being so smashed at my sweet sixteen too, that I don’t even remember it. Yet that is what having a good time was all about, so they say. Bumping and grinding on all the boys with loud music. And as the twinkling lights shine on your skin, that lights the way up to your bedroom. You know that your puffy dress is going to be pushed up a couple of times on that night. I just don’t remember how many times it was, and I didn’t remember who it was with, I am not even sure if I know them at all… all of them or not. All I know is I did it all and was happy to do whatever they asked me to do. But- but I thought I was having the time of my life. I was the birthday girl that had the rosiest pink lipstick on most boys at the party. I thought it was such a horror. In my mind at the time, I thought that I high-jacked the rainbow, and crashed into a pot of gold! All the girls my age did it, yet I was the best at it! I recall the time Liv and I went trick or treating. I was dressed as Hermione from the Harry Potter movies. Liv was a sexy witch! With the pointed hat. So, original…! That is what I told her. That was the night we scared the pants off of Ray in the not-so-scary haunted house. And before you ask, he was dressed as Harry. So, I wanted to play with his wand, that's why I dressed the way I did at the time. Liv was one of those good friends… I thought, which would tell everyone what you all did the day after, to all the girls at the lunch table. She can text faster than anyone I know. Anyways… we jumped out at him, and he nearly craps his nicely pressed pants. I am sure there was a skid mark on his tighty- whities or something. Yet he did yack on Liv’s chest, and that was hilarious to me. She was dancing around, and flapping her hands doing the funky chicken while yelling, ‘Ou- ou- ou- wah!’ As I dibble over in lather, I guess it was funnier when it doesn’t happen to you too many times.

So, you’re perfectly fine—” “Other than the stab wound.” “Ah yes, ha ha. Sorry.” He actually said ‘ha ha’ in a way that Paul found irritating. “Still though, you and I have dealt with some difficult information and now look – we are making jokes! This has gone very well.” He resumed beaming at Paul. “Which brings me to the next issue we must address. There appears to have been an issue with the emergency contact details the nurse took from you when you were admitted.” “Oh?” “It happens all the time. People are rushing about—” “I’d been stabbed.” “You’d been stabbed. We rang the number you gave us and, apparently, it is a Chinese takeaway called the Oriental Palace.” “It’s not just a takeaway. They’ve recently expanded to include an in-dining area with ambiance.” Mrs Wu would’ve been proud. She had been answering the phone ‘Hello Oriental Palace, now including an in-dining area with ambiance’ for nearly three months. She clearly didn’t know what ambiance meant, but somebody must’ve told her the place had it, and she was damn sure going to sell it. “I see,” said Dr Sinha. “And do you have a relative working at the Oriental Palace?” “No, not as such.” Or at all. “Ask for Mickey.” “OK. Mickey who?” Paul had been dreading that question. Who really knew the second name of their regular delivery guy? Sure, Mickey had come in and nabbed the occasional smoke or life-threateningly cheap Eastern European beer on a slow Tuesday. He’d even stayed to watch half of Roxanne on DVD once, but a second name seemed like a very personal question. Mickey had told him he was not from China, and how annoyed he got when people assumed he was. Unfortunately, Paul had forgotten where Mickey was from, so that was another no-go area. “Just Mickey.” “So, no relatives you’d like us to call?” “Nope. None.” Dr Sinha was clearly uncomfortable at this. “Well, as someone from a very large family, may I say, I envy you. I spend half of my salary on birthday cards alone.

At the sight of the dozen assorted cupcakes, as bright and optimistic as party hats, Louise's eyes lit up. "How wonderful!" she said, clapping her hands together again. I handed her one of the red velvet cupcakes that I'd made in the old-fashioned style, using beets instead of food coloring. I'd had to scrub my fingers raw for twenty minutes to get the crimson beet stain off them, but the result was worth it: a rich chocolate cake cut with a lighter, nearly unidentifiable, earthy sweetness, and topped with cream cheese icing and a feathery cap of coconut shavings. For Ogden, I selected a Moroccan vanilla bean and pumpkin spice cupcake that I'd been developing with Halloween in mind. It was not for the faint of heart, and I saw the exact moment in Ogden's eyes that the dash of heat- courtesy of a healthy pinch of cayenne- hit his tongue, and the moment a split-second later that the sugary vanilla swept away the heat, like salve on a wound. "Oh," he said, after swallowing. He looked at me, and I could see it was his turn to be at a loss for words. I smiled. Louise, on the other hand, was half giggling, half moaning her way through a second cupcake, this time a lemonade pound cake with a layer of hot pink Swiss meringue buttercream icing curling into countless tiny waves as festive and feminine as a little girl's birthday tiara. "Exquisite!" she said, mouth full. And then, shrugging in her son's direction, her eyes twinkling. "What? I didn't eat lunch.

Ingrid Seward Ingrid Seward is editor in chief of Majesty magazine and has been writing about the Royal Family for more than twenty years. She is acknowledged as one of the leading experts in the field and has written ten books on the subject. Her latest book, Diana: The Last Word, with Simone Simmons, will be published in paperback in 2007 by St. Martin’s Press. Although Diana assured me that she was happy and finally felt she had found a real purpose in her life, I could still sense some of her inner turmoil. When we were gossiping, she was relaxed, but when we moved on to more serious matters, such as her treatment by the media, her body language betrayed her anxiety. She wrung her hands and looked at me out of the corner of her starling blue eyes. “No one understands what it is like to be me,” she said. “Not my friends, not anyone.” She admitted, however, that there was a positive side to her unique situation in that she could use her high profile to bring attention to the causes she cared about, and this, she assured me, was what she was doing now and wanted to do in the future. But it was the darker, negative side that she had to live with every day. After all this time, she explained, it still upset her to read untruths about herself, and it was simply not in her nature to ignore it. “It makes me feel insecure, and it is difficult going out and meeting people when I imagine what they might have read about me that morning.” Diana had no idea how much she was loved. To the poor, the sick, the weak, and the vulnerable, she was a touchstone of hope. But her appeal extended much further than that. She had the ability to engage the affections of the young and the old from all walks of life. That summer, she wrote a birthday letter to my daughter that read, “I hope for your birthday you managed to get those grown-ups to give you a doll’s house and the cardigan and the pony hair brush you wanted. Don’t believe their excuses.” She wrote similar letters to thousands of other people and always in her own hand. The effect was magical. “Please don’t say anything unkind about her. She’s my friend,” our daughter instructed her father. That, I think, explains the extraordinary outpouring of grief we witnessed when Diana died. Her appeal was as simple as it was unique. Diana touched the child in each and every one of us. She wasn’t the “people’s princess”--she was the people’s friend. The words of a London cabbie still ring in my ears when I think about the week after her death. “We’ll never see the like of her again,” he said as he dropped me off near the ocean of flowers outside Buckingham Palace. He was right.

I should probably head back for Luca’s birthday dinner. They want me to lead the ‘Happy Birthday’ song to him in English for some reason.” “Oh, right. Yeah, it’s getting late.” He lets go of my hand and reaches for his T-shirt. I watch his abs disappear, then pull my tank top over my head. “I’m sure you could come if you want.” He frowns. “Won’t Bruno be there?” “It’s his brother, he’d better be.” “Uh, I’ll pass.” I grab his shirt near the hem and tug him toward me. “Even though I’ll be there?” I bat my eyelashes intentionally fast. “Tempting.” He leans in for a kiss, letting it linger. “But I can’t crash a birthday party for a kid I’ve never met. And I don’t feel much like getting into a fight with a ripped-up Italian tonight. You go ahead, have fun. I’ll see you in the morning, right? Before I leave?” “That,” I say, pecking his lips again, “is a necessity.

Eve taught me to look at the overall picture, to read the cards as art and intuition as much as a science. Women were more in touch with that innate sense than men. Women resonated with the cards. Rather than read the cards in order, I let the entire pattern seep in. I understood the 8 of Clubs and the Ace of Spades. The Queen of Diamonds, I sensed, would be a real person to provide the essentials of life. Then my heart sank when I saw the two Jacks, the Pretenders, the Liars who would upset my balance on the one hand, and try to exert power over me on the other. They framed the 2 of hearts. The Jacks would jeopardize my love life. I’d have to be wary in that domain. It had been quite a while since I had taken a lover. With this news, I would wait. I’d return to New York City, and meet two people who would be my Ace and my Queen. I took the calendar from the wall near the telephone, and sat down on Nestor’s chair. I stared at it, unbelieving; it had been six months since Nestor’s passing. I had spent half a year sorting through Nestor’s things, working, making no new friends, and taking no lovers. I had performed my duties, including marking the calendar mechanically. I operated in a daze. Several people had asked me if they could help. I didn’t understand, but now I knew. I had lost all sense of time and of myself, and I needed to rejoin life. My nineteenth birthday was just six months away. I would stay in Key West until then. In the interim, I would decide what I wanted to keep from Nestor’s legacy and, as he wished, place the rest.

When I was a child and I would listen to my sister's LPs She was a huge fan and she was so in love with him that she wrote him a letter. I enjoyed seeing my sis so happy about Manilow Mania. I wrote some lyrics based on one of his songs, also thinking of those ships that pass in the night in the city where I was born. Can you guess which one? Anyway, my sister was already unconscious at the hospital when I inserted an earplug so that she could hear some of his songs. It was very low, very mild Manilow, when all of a sudden, in the second cord when he sang "I made it through the rain" in a beat a bit higher her heartbeat which was being monitored played faster. I could see that as a sign that she was listening. I stopped the song and I started Singing one of her songs that she had especially made for my birthday when I turned nine yrs old and I never forgot about that. I could see a little smile coming from the left side of her lips. It was the affirmation I needed. That she was and will always be there for me as I so admired her soul to the bones!

We fell into a dreamy assonance. I drifted on the couch cushions down on the floor, attached to a warm baby limpet who was nearing his first birthday. Pollux’s breathing evened out and grew deeper. He was asleep. I stared at my husband’s face, the new cheekbones of a skinny man, his surprising beauty, and I decided to live for love again and take the chance of another lifetime.