Leon cleared his throat. It was not a word. Denise heard it and did not turn to him, because she knew the difference between a throat and a defense. Andre heard it and felt a small, confused hope that died on its own, without anyone having to kill it out loud. His father was behind his mother. His father was smiling less now. His father was not coming around the table. The not-coming was familiar. Familiar things were not always kind. They were only easy to recognize, and recognition was not the same as help.
"Mama," Imani said, uncertain, the large slice still in her hands, frosting warming against the paper. "Andre can have my flower."
"That's yours," Denise said. "Don't start giving away your birthday because people are loud."
Imani looked at her brother. He would not meet her eyes, not because he was angry at her, but because if he looked at the flower he might take it, and taking it would prove the word greedy in front of everyone. He kept his gaze on the fence, on a blue balloon, on a knot of ribbon. His plate hung at his side. His lips stayed pressed. He was nine years old and he was using every skill he had, and the skills were not enough, and he did not have other ones yet.
Pearl did not sit down. The standing had cost her the strategy of the afternoon, and she would not buy the strategy back by pretending her knees had made a mistake. She looked at her daughter and saw the braids, the floral dress, the blister Denise was ignoring, the grief that was real and the meanness that was older than the grief. She did not soften her face into forgiveness. She also did not raise her voice again. Once had been the true size of it. Twice would have been a performance, and she had not stood up to perform.
"Right now," she said again, quieter, which made it worse. "In front of all of us or after we look away. But right now."
***
Denise cut the piece.
She did it because the alternative was a mother in a hat telling the story of this yard for the rest of the church year, and because some stubborn, surviving part of her knew the sentence about greed had been ugly, and because she would not give that part the satisfaction of a speech. She turned to the cake and put the knife in. The cut was angry and thin. Not the corner. Not a flower. A sliver from the middle of the side, mostly crumb, a ridge of chocolate frosting along one edge like an afterthought she had not been able to avoid. She slid it onto a clean plate. The plate looked larger than the cake. She set it on the table closer to herself than to Andre, so that he would have to come and take it, so that the taking would still look a little like asking.
"There," she said. "Nobody can say I didn't."