My stepmother asked if we could not sing Happy Birthday. However, I had spent months planning the party and blowing out the candles in the dark was the best part of any birthday party, especially this one. I was nine and I was generous to her, my father, and everyone else. I decorated the living room with streamers, and with the help of my dad, designed the menu. We were serving an array of vegetables and fruits and 4th of July cookout foods in April.
My stepmother understood why I wanted to have everyone sing, but I didn’t want to understand why she’d rather us not. The only person missing from the party was the birthday girl. How rude would it be to cut the cake without her there? My stomach was growling. I’d saved just enough room for all the sugary crap my aunt bought. Everyone was hungry. We were all stranded on an island, waiting for Monique to show up to her own celebration. Hours passed with the football game in the living room. My dad talked with his cousins, the ones he hadn’t seen in years. They compared each other’s lives.
“Are you Scott’s daughter?” a million people asked me. “You’ve gotten so tall! The last time I saw you, you were a little baby at what’s-her-name’s wedding.”
I laughed and smiled along with them. I offered soda refills and pointed people to the bathroom. No one spoke of the birthday girl the entire day. It was like a game. The idea is that you consciously know why you’re really at my stepmother’s house, dressed in your April rain dresses, talking around linguini and cookies. Everyone wins if everyone avoids the subject.
But the time had come to confront everyone’s resented fear. My sister was never going to come to that party. My sister was not late, sitting in the passenger seat of the car while the taxi driver floored the gas. She wasn’t shy and hiding from all the people who’d showed up on her behalf. She wasn’t going to thank me for doing all of this for her, for inviting everyone she loved, for getting the frosting on the cake in her favorite color, which was pink. She wasn’t going to come in, her pretty dress wet from the rain, and kiss us all on the cheek after we jump out from the shadows to surprise her, apologizing for the inconvenience and hoping everyone would punch her in the arm twenty something times and give her gift cards to Michael’s Craft Store.
My sister is dead.
I made sure to wear an outfit that she once loved when she was my age. My stepmother had preserved it for me and it hurt for her to see me in it. It hurt for me to put her on and take her off. This was the day I realized that some memories are like pictures that you can put up and face or take down and hide. This was the day we stopped hiding her and burying her away like the body.
We came to grieve her and celebrate all at once. We bought all the things she would have adored, listened to the music she used to, looked at pictures of her growing up. More than this, we wanted to re-experience her as though this party would personify her, manifest her being into the room. Our goodbyes were not complete when she passed. We spoke of love to her, promised we would take her home and buy her whatever take out she wanted if she would only open her eyes, make her heart start beating again, will her kidneys to be nice to her body. I was seven when it happened. My dad had dragged me into the hospital and placed me in front of my unconscious sister. Her eyes were closed and she breathed so slowly. A sheet covered the rest of her body and my father said, “Tell your sister you love her.” His voice broke into the seeds that grew grass over her coffin. I refused to say I love her and my dad wept, feeling defeated as we walked out of the Children’s Hospital for the last day of her life.
I should have given my stepmother this gift. I should have let it go and let my dad dole out the birthday cake. The party was hours in hell for her, knowing that she was celebrating the death of her only baby girl, who would be dancing to one more year of life. My stepmother stepped out of the room while we sang “Happy birthday, dear Monique”, beckoning her spirit to fill our tea glasses.