Chapter 11
If I am ever able to make a wish, I would wish for her.
It’s Thanksgiving. A holiday we don’t really care about in Auraria but we all use it as a day off. I personally don’t love celebrating the colonization of Native lands, and when I explain this to Sanders he spends a long time silently contemplating his role in medieval colonization.
“Reflection is important, Sanders. Reflection and changing patterns as we learn and move forward.”
This year Thanksgiving happens to fall on my birthday. We are going to kill two birds with one stone—a phrase Sanders did not like—by baking a cake and learning a new game today.
Well, I am not involved in the cake making process. Sanders and Mom have sequestered themselves in the kitchen with the promise to emerge with the World’s Best Cake.
I honestly cannot remember the last time Mom baked, and obviously Sanders never has, so this should be interesting. Mom assured me that she’s been watching YouTube videos and is confident in her abilities to make a delicious cake.
“Do not worry, Penelope. It will be a piece of?—”
“Don’t say it!” I cry, regretting teaching him that particular saying.
They leave me and Grandmother to decide which game we should teach Sanders.
“I refuse to play Monopoly.”
Grandmother tuts. “It’s an excellent game, Penny.”
“No,” I argue. “It’s the game that never fucking ends.”
“What about checkers?” she asks.
“Too easy.”
“Well chess would be too hard, though I bet he’d love the knight.”
“He already knows chess,” I reply. “It’s an ancient game, Grandmother.”
“Card games, then? Poker? Gin? Solitaire?”
I laugh. “You want me to teach him a game to play by himself?”
She sits up. “I have the perfect idea! The neighbor boy… I can never remember his name?—”
“It’s Oliver.”
“Yes, Oliver. He gave me a new game so we can all learn together.”
“He’s six. What game did he bring?”
She gives me a sly grin.
And that’s how I end up playing Pie Face with my mom, grandmother, and a medieval knight.
“I don’t understand this game. There’s no point other than avoiding whipped cream to the face!”
Sanders licks said whipped cream from around his mouth. “It is amazing,” he replies with childlike joy. “It is the ultimate game of luck!”
“I wouldn’t say the ultimate game of luck,” I grumble.
“You’re just sour that you haven’t been pied in the face yet,” Mom scolds, a smatter of whipped cream across her face as well.
“That means I’m winning!” In reality, I think Oliver gave this game to my grandmother because one of the cranks is broken and doesn’t ever latch to deploy the whipped cream. No one else seems to care that the game is rigged, they’re all having too much fun.
“Is that the problem?” Sanders questions. “You are sad you do not have any pie on your face?”
“No it’s not—” Splat!
Three coordinated blobs of whipped cream simultaneously hit me in the face. My mouth drops into an O, and I use my fingers as windshield wipers across my glasses so I can see the traitors. “I. Cannot. Believe. You. Did. That.”
“Did what?” Grandmother asks, feigning innocence.
“Did this!” I scoop a bit of whipped cream off my forehead and fling it at her.
“Penelope!” my mom admonishes.
I take more and fling some at her. “You too!”
From there, it devolves into a full-on whipped cream food fight. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life. Once we’ve gone through the entire can, we collapse into our chairs, struggling to catch our breath. As if it was waiting for us to finish our childish adventure, the oven dings.
Mom claps her hands together. “Cake time!”
She and Sanders, both still a sugary mess, make their way into the kitchen to finish the task of making the cake.
I wet a towel, cleaning up the candy-coated chaos as best as I can.
“He’s good for you,” Grandmother says, inciting that now-familiar tug in my chest.
“I know he is,” I whisper. “But I can’t get attached. It’s the Graves way, is it not?”
The Graves line is a matriarchy for a reason. No one as far back as I know ever had a serious partner. Just someone to help continue on the line, that’s all I know about my biological father and grandfather. I suppose that’s our own curse.
“Oh Penelope.” Grandmother sighs. “Just because it’s the way something has always been done, doesn’t mean it has to be that way for you. You have always been special. You have always had the ability to choose your own destiny.”
“Have I?” It’s a genuine question. We’ve never had this discussion before. The Graves girls—it’s the way it’s always been, and I never thought to question it. No one ever made me want to.
“Of course,” she replies. “I’m sorry we ever led you to believe anything different.”
“Even if I did want to change my destiny, it’s not up to me. Sanders wants to find peace, and I need to help him go through the veil.”
“Sanders is also in charge of his own destiny,” she says.
I open my mouth to ask what she means when the kitchen door opens. “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Penelope,” my mom sings.
Sanders follows behind her with a two-tier chocolate cake, thirty-one candles lit up, glowing light dancing across his face.
“You’ll burn the house down with that many candles,” Grandmother teases.
“Happy birthday to you,” Sanders finishes, placing the cake in front of me. “Make a wish—your mom told me that is a common practice on birthdays.”
I do make a wish, but, even if I never tell anyone, I make that wish knowing it won’t come true.