Andre tried to be careful with his anger. He didn't want their children to grow up believing love was a contest and that they had to pick a winning parent. When Camille canceled, he said she couldn't make it. When Caleb asked if she was coming home, he said he didn't know. When Nia accused him of protecting someone who hurt them, he listened rather than correcting her feelings. But he made one mistake again and again: because he wanted the children to keep hope, he let Camille make promises she had not yet proved she could keep.
Three weeks before Caleb's birthday, Camille called while Andre was washing dishes. She asked to speak to her son, and Caleb ran to the phone so fast he tripped over a kitchen towel. Andre heard her tell him she would be there Saturday morning, right before breakfast. She would bring a big cake, she said, and they would go somewhere special afterward. Caleb asked whether she would be there before or after the candles. "Before, baby," Camille promised. "I wouldn't miss your sixth birthday."
After that call, Caleb marked every day on the wall calendar with a blue crayon. Nia helped him count down. Andre bought a small cupcake anyway, because he had learned to prepare for the possibility that the big cake might not appear. He told himself it was just insurance against disappointment. He did not want to admit that it was a measure of how little he trusted his wife's word.
The night before the birthday, Andre checked his phone at nine, ten, and midnight. Camille had not answered his last two messages, although she had read them. The first asked what time she expected to arrive. The second was shorter: Please tell me whether you're coming so I can tell the kids the truth. Shortly after midnight, she replied that work had become complicated and she would let him know in the morning. Andre stared at the words until the screen dimmed. He almost called, then looked toward the children's bedrooms and decided he was too tired to argue with a person who was never standing where the argument happened.
At six the next morning, he made pancakes shaped like uneven dinosaurs. Nia drew a sign in purple marker and taped it to the window. Caleb wanted to wear his birthday crown while brushing his teeth, and Andre let him, even after the paper got wet around the edges. The house smelled of butter, chocolate, and the vanilla frosting Aunt Iris had helped him make the evening before. It was the kind of morning Andre once believed was proof that everything would be all right if a father worked hard enough.
At eight-thirty, Camille sent a message: Flight plans changed. Don't start without me. Andre called immediately. She didn't answer. Ten minutes later, another message appeared: I can't talk right now. He watched Caleb set a fourth napkin at the table and, for the first time, recognized how much pain was packed into those five simple words. Don't start without me. It was an instruction that made the child's birthday dependent on someone else's convenience.
Andre took the extra napkin away while Caleb was upstairs finding his dinosaur slippers. He moved Camille's chair closer to the wall, then stopped. Hiding a chair would not hide the truth. He pushed it back into place and went to find his son. He told Caleb that they were having birthday breakfast at nine, with or without visitors. Caleb asked if they could wait until nine-thirty. Andre agreed to nine-fifteen, then knew instantly that he had made the old mistake again.