And then came yesterday.
Their thirtieth wedding anniversary.
My mother had spent months planning it. Rentals, flowers, catering, engraved invitations, a string quartet in the backyard, white roses on every flat surface, crystal glassware, vintage china, imported champagne—the full, expensive pageant of a life curated for other people’s admiration.
I was not invited.
Of course I wasn’t.
The celebration was happening above me, around me, despite me, as if I were some shameful maintenance issue best kept below ground.
But some stupid, still-unbroken part of me wanted to mark the day. To do something simple and sincere. Something that belonged to family rather than theater.
So I baked a cake.
Nothing extravagant. A lemon pound cake using my grandmother’s recipe—the one everyone used to love before loving things became less important than impressing people. I spent the afternoon measuring flour and zesting lemons and trying, absurdly, to get it right.
At seven that evening, I carried it upstairs in a disposable pan.