5
When I open my front door, the wheezing sound of a kazoo fills the air and a handful of glitter confetti rains over me.
“Happy birthday!”
I blink and stare dumbly at my mum. She’s in a silver birthday-party hat and a yellow tie-dye party dress, and she’s tossing handfuls of multicolored glittery confetti into the air.
“Happy birthday, Moonbeam!”
The chateau smells like a birthday party. There’s the vanilla-and-sugar of chiffon, the tart lemony scent of curd, the mellow sweetness of clotted cream. There’s the sweet scent of chocolate melted into milk, simmering on the stove. And layering over it all, my mum’s favorite birthday surprise; orange-and-almond Victoria sponge.
I remember my fourth birthday, my fifth birthday, and my sixth birthday, and each of them smelled exactly like this.
Because my mum has been trying to find herself since before I was born, she’s never stayed still long enough to have a home. Instead we used to sleep on couches at her friends’ houses, floors of acquaintances’ flats, and makeshift tents in the fields outside Glastonbury Festival.
When I was very small and she said, “Moonbeam, I’m on a journey to find myself,” I believed she had literally lost a part of herself, like an arm or a finger or a toe. I’d scan her worriedly, wondering where her missing part could possibly be and how she could have misplaced it.
I’d even lie awake at night staring at the leaking flaps of the rug tent she’d built, listening to the music of the festival and the crackling fires outside, where grown-ups debated self-actualization, and I’d wonder, did finding yourself always mean there wasn’t enough to eat?
But then my birthday would come and my mum would find us a friend’s flat or a rambly cottage to stay in for a week or two, and she’d stir hot chocolate on the stove and bake me lemon chiffon and orange-and-almond Victoria sponge.
There’d be a bowl of forbidden party nibbles—forbidden on account of them being consumeristic. Chocolate Smarties, Cadbury Buttons, Kinder Eggs.
The little toy inside the egg was my birthday present. Twice it was a two-pence-size yellow plastic animal of indeterminate species, with a smashed face and malformed knees. Once it was a car whose wheels didn’t spin.
There’s a bowl full of Kinder Eggs now on the sitting-room coffee table, right next to a three-tiered lemon chiffon cake, pink birthday candles ready to be lit.
The chateau, being hundreds of years old and the home of generations of Abrys, is part-comfy house, part-museum, and part-entertainment showpiece. The sitting room leans toward shabby comfy and is our favorite place to lounge. There are two lumpy avocado-green and orange-striped couches from Grandpa’s fifties fever and a boxy walnut coffee table.
Mila convinced me to buy a pair of pink beanbag chairs and a massive projection screen for movie night. The screen hangs on the wall opposite the stone fireplace.
There are a few wooden chairs with cross-stitched padding from the early 1900s—evidence that one of our great-great-aunts loved stitching spaniels and chubby babies in cloth nappies. There are shelves lining the walls with old clothbound books, and random artifacts from around the world (an Abry from the 1880s went on a world tour and brought back art for inspiration). A few portraits hang on the walls, mostly men with pocket watches who look a lot like Daniel in old-fashioned clothing.
It’s a hodgepodge shabbily comfy room, a dichotomy to the curated splendor of the public rooms. My mum lived here for three months with my dad before their divorce, so of course she’d know this is the place to throw a party. She’s draped the walls in multicolored bunting and filled every spare space with wild clover blossoms, giving the room a festive feel.
My mum flings the rest of the confetti over me and a few pieces stick to my lips.
I blow them away.
Behind my mum Daniel throws me a look that says, “I have no idea what’s happening and I’m as shocked as you are.”
Max has a sort of “I’ve just been run over by a lorry” look.
Mila can’t seem to decide between excitement over cake or confusion over her grandma’s sudden appearance and subsequent party.
Annemarie, Mila’s nanny, peers around the hall door, wide-eyed and curious, and then she pops back around the corner when she sees the confetti blizzard raining over me.
“Oh, happy birthday, Moonbeam!” My mum gives me a radiant smile.
I take a moment, gauging her smile, wondering if she’s serious. You can never tell.
“Mum, it’s not my birthday.”
My birthday isn’t for another four months.
She widens her hazel eyes, a mirror of mine. “But it could be. Why are you attached to a specific day? Attachment is the root of pain. Let’s have cake.”
I step forward and hug my mum. “It’s nice to see you.”
She pats my back. “I know.”
My mum pulls away, gripping my arms and studying me. All the while, sweet, sugary scents flow around us. She frowns at whatever she finds in my expression.
“I had a feeling,” she says finally, “and I was right. You need to find yourself, Moonbeam.”
I try to hide my flinch, but since my mum’s holding my arms, she notices it right away. She shakes her head and then steps back.
Mum has red hair, lighter than Mila’s, and it’s faded through the years. Her skin has a translucent quality that makes her look younger than she is. She also has a unique air—one that’s hard to put your finger on. Back when I was in primary school I learned about the alpine swift. It’s a small bird that can stay aloft for up to two hundred days at a time. When I read about that bird I realized that was the feeling my mum gave off. She doesn’t stay and she doesn’t land.
“I’m glad I came.” Mum gives me her brilliant smile again. “You are in dire need of a birthday.”
At that she sweeps her party dress behind her and turns toward the kitchen—and presumably the Victoria sponge.
She stops at Daniel’s disapproving stare. His arms are folded over his chest, his mouth tilted down at the corners.
Daniel’s mom was our dad’s second wife, a glamorous and gorgeous American heiress from New York. She remarried a Texas oil tycoon and left Daniel with Dad shortly after Daniel’s second birthday.
For some reason my mum never liked Daniel, not even when he was a little kid. And Daniel, for his part, never much liked my mum. He told me once that it’s because she hurt me. He couldn’t care less what she thinks of him. He only cares how she’s treated me.
“Daniel.” My mum tilts her chin in the air, taking on a haughty look that doesn’t match her silver party hat and tie-dye dress.
“Buttercup,” Daniel says, curtly nodding his head.
She glowers at him, her lips pursing. “Still chasing the capitalist’s dream? Materialism and consumerism your rotten bedfellows?”
My brother gives her a feral grin. “Still chasing your shadow around the world? Selfishness and blindness your faithful companions?”
Max coughs into his hand. He’s only met Buttercup once, and that was at my dad’s funeral when he patted her shoulder and offered her his handkerchief. “Shall I get some plates for the cake?”
My mum breaks her stalemate staring contest with Daniel. “Who are you again? I didn’t invite you.”
Judging by the look she casts Daniel, she didn’t invite him to my fake birthday party either.
Max gives my mum a hawkish smile, his glossy black hair shining under the light. “Max, remember? I introduced myself at the door. Maximillian Barone, a friend of your daughter’s.”
“No.” She waves his statement away. “That’s not what I meant. Aren’t you the man who sold me that miniature hoover with the selenite insert that could dust up negative energy? From the curiosity shop in Bern.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yes, that was you. I know that supercilious look. You owe me fifty-five pounds, the hoover didn’t work. You’re a purveyor of rubbish.”
Max gives her an affronted look. “I can assure you that wasn’t me.”
Daniel grins and rocks back on his heels, enjoying Max’s reddening face.
Mila is tiptoeing toward the coffee table, her eyes on the glossy vanilla icing layered over the three-tiered lemon cake.
“Oh no, I know it was you. I can smell the guilt all over you. As thick as the smoke in a hookah bar.”
“That’s not guilt. It’s commercialism. It coats him like smog,” Daniel says, grinning.
The look on Max’s face almost makes me laugh.
Mila’s reached the cake. She darts her gaze around, checking to see no one’s watching. Then she swipes her finger through the frosting near the base of the cake, pulling up a bright, sugary, glistening layer.
She pops her finger into her mouth and then smiles, her eyes widening.
I can just imagine the flavor. My mum always could bake a delicious cake.
“Mr. Barone, I expect a refund. Furthermore, you may not pursue my daughter. Clearly, if you can’t be trusted to sell a functional hoover, you can’t be trusted to perform in other ways.”
With that my mum grandly sweeps away to the kitchen.
This time Daniel’s coughing into his hand, covering a laugh.
Max stares after my mum then mumbles, “My hoover functions just fine.”
I hide a smile and dust the brightly colored confetti from my dress.
Max turns to me, his hands up. “Fi, I came to drop off your jacket. You forgot it last week. I don’t mean to intrude.” He looks in the direction of the front door. “I should go.”
“You should stay,” Daniel says, clapping Max’s arm.
“You should stay,” I agree, wanting Max here. “After all, we’re having a birthday party.”
At that Mila lets out a desperate squeak. The chiffon cake, which she’d been swiping frosting from, tilts. It wobbles. And then it tumbles off the platter and onto the floor.
It hits with a whoomph, a squelch, and then settles into a pile of frosted, cakey goop.
“Oh no,” Mila whispers, her lips covered in cake crumbs.
“You might clean that up,” Daniel says to Max. “Show Buttercup your hoovering abilities.”
“Sorry, Mummy.” Mila stares at the cake. Her lips wobble. The lemony chiffon looks for all the world like a crushed sandcastle.
I tug her to me and hug her close. “Don’t worry. There’s still the Victoria sponge. It’s orange and almond.”
Mila looks at me with hopeful eyes. “Two cakes! Do you think even though it isn’t your birthday that you’ll still get presents? I’ll sing you ‘Happy Birthday’ if you do.”
I smile and ruffle her hair. “Knowing your Grandma Buttercup, I’m certain I’ll get presents.”
At least, I’ll get a few Kinder Eggs.
Or maybe, judging by the look on my mum’s face, something more.