Chapter 1 - THE WISH BENEATH HIS SHOES
Cody was already in the air when I saw him.
His knees were bent. His arms were thrown wide. Wild triumph twisted his eleven-year-old face as he dropped toward the birthday cake Theo and I had spent half the morning decorating.
“No!” I shouted.
Both sneakers landed in the center.
The eight candles disappeared beneath his soles.
Flames sputtered into frosting. Fondant baseballs shot across the patio. A sugar scoreboard broke against the gift table. Blackberry filling splashed over Cody’s white school polo and down the front of his shorts.
“Your wish will never come true!” he screamed.
Theo recoiled as though Cody had landed on him.
My son still held the breath he had drawn to blow out his candles. His lips remained rounded. His hands hung beside his baseball shirt.
Drew Howerin stood near the gifts with her smartphone raised.
She began to clap slowly.
“He made this boring little party memorable.”
Several guests stared.
No one laughed with her.
Cody ground the ruined cake beneath his sneakers. Wax, frosting, and crushed sponge spread across the white cloth.
I reached the table before thought became caution.
My hands seized the edge.
I yanked it toward me.
The folding legs scraped across the patio.
Cody’s face changed.
He screamed, threw both arms forward, and fell from the shifting tabletop. His shoulder struck the grass first, followed by his hip. One sneaker flew off and landed beside the broken cake stand.
Drew’s phone dropped to her side.
“My son!”
She ran toward him.
I froze.
I had wanted him off Theo’s cake.
I had not calculated the fall.
Cody rolled onto his back, crying and clutching his wrist.
Behind me, Theo whispered, “Mom?”
I turned.
He pointed at the cake.
His face had folded inward with humiliation so complete that anger left me.
“Was my birthday really boring?”
I crouched and took him into my arms.
“No, sweetheart. The only ugly thing here is what they chose to do.”
His forehead pressed against my shoulder.
Drew knelt beside Cody, checking his head and limbs while shouting for someone to call an ambulance.
Then she looked at me.
“You attacked a child.”
“I pulled the table.”
“He was standing on it!”
“He jumped onto my son’s cake.”
“He was joking.”
Cody continued to cry.
I could not pretend my action had been harmless because his had been cruel.
“We’ll let the doctors check him,” I said.
Drew rose slowly.
“You’re finished, Maggie.”
I looked at the frosting on Theo’s clothes and the candles crushed into mud.
Then I remembered the four payments scheduled to leave the Barrymore Family Support account that afternoon.
Drew’s mortgage.
Cody’s private-school tuition.
A monthly consulting transfer.
A payment labeled Family Continuity Services.
For eighteen months, I had allowed them to continue because Daniel had once asked me to make sure his sister and nephew were secure.
Drew had just watched her son destroy the birthday of Daniel’s only child.
I opened my banking app.
“Mommy will make them regret it soon.”
My finger moved across the screen.
I stopped the first payment.
Then the second.
The third.
The fourth.
Drew’s phone rang before I lowered mine.
Her face lost all color when she saw the caller.
She answered but said nothing.
A man’s voice shouted loudly enough for me to hear one sentence.
“The continuity transfers have frozen.”
Drew stared at the four suspended payments on my screen.
“You don’t understand what you just stopped.”
I looked more closely.
Each transfer carried the same beneficiary reference.
May you like
THEODORE DANIEL BARRYMORE.
They had been using my son’s name for payments I believed belonged to Drew.
