"Maybe," Andre said.
"Maybe's fair."
Denise heard them. She was close enough to hear and too proud to pretend she wasn't. She set the knife down on the empty cake plate harder than she needed to. "Don't make him a project in my yard," she said. "Either of you."
Pearl stood again, slower this time. She picked her purse up from the grass and brushed a dry leaf from the leather. "I'm going home," she said. "I won't be sleeping here."
Denise's mouth tightened. "Fine."
"I didn't ask you to say it was fine."
"You never do. You announce, and then I'm the one who looks mean for having a face." Denise's voice shook, which made her angrier. She kept it low so Imani, inside, would get the sound and not the words. "You think I don't know how it looked? I know how it looked. He had a cake last year. I am one person. I buried my father in March. I am trying to give this girl a day that isn't a hospital or a funeral or a house where everybody whispers. And he walks up with a plate like the day was a trick I played. What was I supposed to do, cut the cake in half and call that a childhood?"
"You were supposed to cut him a piece when he asked," Pearl said. "The rest of that can be true and still not be a reason to call him greedy in front of the Odells."
Denise stared at her mother. The grief was real in her face now that the guests were gone, and so was the favoritism, and they did not cancel each other. They stood side by side like the two names that should have been on the banner. "Don't come back in here tonight and hug me like we finished something," she said.
"I wasn't going to." Pearl turned to Andre. "Walk me to the car?"