“Sixteen,” Devin declares. “I hope you’re doing something special for it.” He laughs dryly into the phone. “Remember how Mom used to make us all sing happy birthday to each other?” First thing in the morning my mother would gather us all around the kitchen table, stick a candle in the birthday boy’s or girl’s freshly baked muffin, and lead us in a loud and off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Of course I remember. Every time I smell warm muffins in the air it smells like somebody’s birthday.
“So where’s my song?” I kid. My heart’s beating faster from just hearing Devin’s voice on the phone. I don’t expect anything from him anymore, but he’s made me happier than he could ever know.
“You know I could never sing,” Devin says. “But happy birthday anyway. Any sign of your old pal, Clara?”
A chuckle bursts up from my diaphragm, Clara’s ghostly black and white image shimmering behind my eyes. Whether the picture comes from my own memory or Devin’s description from last Christmas, I can’t tell. It’s all the same now, a shared story and vision from our past. “She’s right here,” I tell him. “Want to say hello?”
“You say hi for me.”
I can’t ask him any questions and spoil things. Everything now is up to him, but it’s a good sign that he called, isn’t it? I feel it in my bones.
“See you later, sis,” he continues.
“Talk to you later,” I say back. “And, thanks.”
I disconnect and curl back into Gage’s arms, my eyes wet. “I can’t believe that,” I mumble. “I can’t believe he just called.”
Devin called once, so he can call again, and I won’t let myself obsess about exactly when that will happen, but I’m going to keep right on believing he’ll work his way slowly back to all of us.
“Maybe he’ll get in touch some other time,” Gage says, broadcasting my thoughts.
“I really hope so.” I plant a grateful kiss on Gage’s chin. “How long do we have left?”
He holds his arm over our heads and scrunches up his eyes to read his watch. “About fifteen minutes. I guess I should clean myself up and get ready.”
“In five minutes, okay?”
Gage strokes my hair and nestles his head into the crook of my shoulder. “Okay.”
This is what it’s like, starting over every day. Messy and gradual. Good and bad. Better and better and better. This is the very beginning of sixteen, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A hundred thousand thanks to Deborah Kerbel and Barry Jowett for their grace and guidance. Without you this book wouldn’t have been possible! Hearty thanks also to Courtney Summers, Monica Kulling and Margaret Buffie for their continuing support, and to the sensational team at Dancing Cat Books – Alessandra Ferreri, Bryan J. Ibeas, Angel Guerra, and Tannice Goddard.
Always and forever, special thanks go to my husband, Paddy, for being my trusty first reader and (in the words of Jim Croce), “the one I want to go through time with.”
The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing Page 24
