Trying Not to Give a Sheet Cake—
cream cheese chocolate cake with a layer of peanut butter frosting, unassuming and impossible to resist
Liv’s Aston Martin slides into our driveway with a purr like a sleek puma. I exchange a glance with my mother, and I know by her nod that she understands I need a minute in private.
“Spence,” she says, not missing a beat. “I just remembered I forgot a couple of stocking stuffers in the closet upstairs. Want to come find them with me?”
“Most definitely!” my nine-year-old says at the prospect of more presents, launching himself off the couch.
As soon as they leave the room, I race to the front door, hoping to get out there before Liv comes in. I forgo a coat, slipping outside just as Liv places one high heel in our driveway.
She retracts her leg back when she sees me, instead leaning over and pushing the passenger door open from the inside.
“So, you’re alive?” she says, giving me a look as I slump into the seat next to her and click the door closed against the chilly air. “Well, that’s a relief. ’Cause I wasn’t sure after I texted you five thousand times with no reply.”
I wince at her words. “I turned my phone off after I left your house last night.”
She grunts like she can’t argue with that decision.
We fall into a momentary silence, and I pull at the edge of my sweater. I was hoping to get through the rest of the day without incident, not that I haven’t been thinking about my fight with Wilder. But it’s one thing to think about it and another to have Liv shine a spotlight on it.
“Liv, no offense, but what are you doing here?” I ask, turning to face her. “It’s Christmas Day. Not that you’re not welcome, you always are, but what about Claudette? What about your family? Don’t you have a hundred cousins and aunts at your parents’ right now?”
“Claude is taking a nap. I swear that woman was a house cat in her last life. And my family?” She shakes her head. “I know I shouldn’t have just shown up here on a holiday . . . sorry about that, but I didn’t want you skipping town before I said my piece.”
I sigh in anxious resignation because her concern is legitimate; I’d been planning on leaving first thing, or at least that was the plan before I talked with my mom. I consider telling her as much when she puts her car in reverse.
“Hang on, where are we—”
“Nowhere,” she replies. “I just think better while driving.”
I nod because that actually works for me—keeps Spence from peering through the windows at us. She takes my nod as agreement and reverses onto the quiet street.
“I know showing up here is a little aggressive,” Liv starts. “And, I mean, aggressive is basically my MO, but I’m actually not trying to put you on the spot like you might think. I just couldn’t not come. Again. Like a bad repeat of ten years ago.”
For some reason, this startles me. “Liv . . . you were in college when I left.”
“Yeah, I know. But that shit with my brother went on for months.” She frowns at the memory as we cruise through the fading light that dapples the winter streets. “And . . . he used to call me about it, about what was happening between you two. My point is that I wasn’t blissfully unaware like you might have thought.”
I stare at her, unsure how to respond. Wilder is such a private person that it never occurred to me he might discuss the details of our relationship with his sister.
She shifts gears as we slow for a stop sign. “And in all my infinite teen wisdom, I thought that staying out of it was the best thing for you both.”
“I really don’t think there was anything you could have done,” I say, because I can hear the guilt in her voice and because if I were her, I probably would have stayed out of it, too.
“I could have called you,” she says. “I could have invited you up to Yale for a weekend, gotten you out of this place for a moment of fresh air. I mean, fuck, you were basically my younger sister. I think I liked you better than Wilder. And when I heard you left Haverberry, I thought you’d be back. But you never returned, and the time went so fast. All of a sudden, it felt impossible to reach out to you, like my absence was too big to apologize for.”
I look at my hands, remembering those early days in LA and how isolating they were. “I wasn’t mad at you.”
“Well, I’m mad at me. And I’ll be damned if I repeat that. So here I am on Christmas afternoon, pissing my mom off and leaving her scintillating mulled cocktail hour,” Liv rolls her eyes, “in order to make sure you’re okay.”
We hit a pothole at the end of Liv’s sentence, one of those crater-sized ones that shaves a couple of years off your life.
“Fucking New England potholes,” Liv breathes. “Going to give me an eye twitch.” She pats her steering wheel like she could comfort her poor car.
“All you can do is pray and clench your butt cheeks,” I offer, referring to both potholes and my present situation.
She laughs and the mood eases slightly, some of the tension being gobbled up by humor.
Until she says, “Here’s the thing . . . I’m not going to beat around the bush,” and I know without a doubt that this conversation just took the turn I feared. “I’m here for me, but I’m also here because I think you should talk to Wilder. Alone. Without my mother and Kate fucking things up. My God, do I wish I knew what was happening in that library last night.”
I stare out the window, tensing. “Liv, I don’t think—”
“I know Wilder screwed up. I know better than anyone, well, besides you that is. And I’m not making excuses for him. But I also think that you’re going to want to hear what he has to say. And that if you don’t, you’re always going to wonder if things might have been different.”
I give her the side-eye because I’m sure she’s aware that she’s speaking directly to my doubts. It’s no wonder she studied law—the entire bar-certified population probably wept when she changed professions. “Look, I get what you’re trying to do, but it’s just . . .”
She waits for me to find my words.
“I don’t trust him,” I reply. “I just don’t. And nothing he says is gonna change that.”
“Mads—”
“Liv,” I say, this time cutting her off. “I appreciate you coming to see me, and everything you said. You and I? We’re good. I’m glad you’re back in my life. But me and Wilder?” I shake my head. “He was engaged to Kate two weeks ago. I mean, if that doesn’t indicate that I shouldn’t get involved, I don’t know what does.”
She cringes a little. “Believe me, I know it all looks bad. But you also have to understand that Mama Buenaventura has made it her mission to curate his position as the male Buenaventura heir or something equally barbaric. And maybe I give him too much of a break on this one, but you remember our never-ending stream of nannies. Wilder wasn’t like me, he didn’t box up his heart and write fuck you on the flap, he was always trying to win Mom’s favor, make her proud so she’d notice him, and I don’t think he ever really unlearned that behavior. It took you coming along to—”
I cut her off, her words hitting me harder than she realizes. Because as a parent I see it differently than I did as a kid, and I don’t want my sympathy for the neglected child that Wilder was to draw me back in. “I get what you’re trying to do. I know you care about your brother and that you want what’s best for him. But truly, what’s best for both of us is to stop trying to patchwork something that fell apart years ago. We’ll just wind up hating each other.”
Liv opens her mouth, but I start speaking again before she can continue to pull at my heartstrings. “Now, as much as I love you, I do have to get back to the house. Jake is coming by soon to see Spence.”
Liv exhales long and loud. But she takes the next turn onto my street. “Okay, I respect your decision. And I’m gonna butt out. All I’m saying is that if you do want to talk to him, I mean if you change your mind, he’s not at my parents’ house.”
This, of course, gets my attention. He’s not at his parents’ house on Christmas? “Where is he?” I ask, hating myself a little for not being able to resist.
A hint of a smile appears before she erases it from my view. “He’s at his house . . . alone. I guess whatever happened last night between you two devastated him, made him not want to be with my mother. And good for him. It’s been far too long since he’s drawn a line with her.” She steals a glance at me to make sure her words are landing, and I wish I could say they weren’t. “I’ll give you the address. He gets spotty reception there, so he doesn’t always see texts.”
“I don’t need—” I start as she pulls into my driveway.
“31 Winter Street,” she says before I can get out my objection.
She pulls to a stop in my driveway, and I give her an objecting look.
“Merry Christmas, Mads,” she says with a grin, leaning over to hug me. “I’m glad we did this.”
I lift an amused eyebrow. “Uh-huh,” I say, opening the door. “Me, too, I think?”
She laughs as I step out into the driveway. “Say hi to your mom and Spence.”
I grumble a little as she pulls away, vowing to block out the things she said about Wilder, especially the part where he’s spending Christmas alone. But as the day winds down, my thoughts keep drifting back to him. I’m positive he wasn’t devastated. Liv was probably exaggerating. Had to be.
But . . . what if she wasn’t?
Ugh! SHUT UP, brain!
When Jake finally shows up (an hour late), the phone rings. While my mother answers it, I excuse myself and head up to my bedroom to have a minute alone. To stare at my suitcase, as it were, the one I was so intent on packing not twelve hours earlier. Because the question of leaving, the one that I’ve been struggling with since I first read my dad’s will, has been buzzing in the back of my mind all day. But before I have a chance to really agonize over it, there’s a knock.
“Madeline?” my mother says, and I tell her to come in.
She, too, looks at my suitcase. “I wanted to give you this . . . before Christmas was over,” she says, holding an envelope between her hands.
On the outside is my name written in capital letters, the way my dad always printed, and the sight of it sends my pulse skittering into chaos.
“Your father,” she says and swallows, “had this awful dream about three months before his heart attack.” She stops, rubbing her thumb along the envelope in a way that tells me this is hard for her, which only unsettles me further. “In his dream, a truck drove into the bakery and killed him.” She looks at me meaningfully.
My eyebrows push together in confusion. “Wait, hang on . . . You think the dream was a premonition?” I ask, not able to hide my surprise—my mother isn’t one to give credence to anything she can’t see.
“Not at the time,” she admits. “But he did. When he woke up, he wouldn’t stop talking about it, about how real it felt. As you might imagine, I argued with him about it. But he wouldn’t let it go. Two weeks later, he went and changed his will, wrote that addendum about the bakery.”
Her words hit me like a right hook, spinning my head and rattling my vision.
Mom takes a breath. “He tried to talk to me about it, but it only made me angry.” Her voice catches slightly, and she takes a moment to even it out. “Then he put this letter in the safe. Told me to give it to you a year after he died. I was so mad at him for going on about his death, that I almost burned the thing.”
I stare at the letter, struggling to breathe. I don’t ask her why she never told me because the answer is obvious by the look on her face—that after fighting with him about the validity of it and being proven wrong, she felt it her duty to honor his last wishes.
“Anyway,” she says, lifting her chin to stave off a sniffle. “I wanted to give it to you before you left.” She glances at my suitcase once more.
There’s no judgment in her tone this time, no veiled insult about my maturity, and it gets me. I have to clear my throat in order to speak.
“Thank you,” I say as she hands it over.
She nods and leaves the room, neither of us composed enough to talk about it further. And for a solid minute, I stare at my dad’s penmanship on the envelope, frozen in place on my rug. For a passing second, I think maybe I shouldn’t read it; maybe I should wait until Spence is asleep, until I’m not so confused, until I have time to process, until, until, until . . . But when does that moment come? When do things get so perfect and calm that you can deal with all the broken bits? Never, that’s when.
So, I do it even though I don’t want to, even though I’m terrified, even though part of me is trying to launch a defense about why my dad didn’t tell me about his dream. But I know why, because I wouldn’t frighten Spence with that if the dream had been mine.
My hand shakes as my finger catches the back flap, pulling it free and breaking the seal. I slide the paper out with care, like there might be a piece of my dad inside. And as I unfold the letter—stationery I recognize from his desk at the bakery—I brush my eyes with the back of my hand.
Madeline,
I’m a simple man, and I often get things wrong when it comes to other people’s emotions. But just the same, here it goes, the sloppy version that I hope you’ll be able to understand.
I don’t know if you remember, but a short while before you left you were making lemon rose cupcakes in the bakery and you asked me if I wanted you there. The question threw me at the time because I didn’t think you ever doubted that. I’ve thought about that conversation a thousand times since. And I know that this is far too late, but I’d like to answer that question now.
Yes, my darling girl, I’ve always wanted you at the bakery. From the moment I met you in the hospital until the day I die and even after I will feel the same. I built it for you, just as my great-grandfather built his for his children. And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish you were here rolling and kneading beside me.
But I also want you to know that I don’t blame you for going. That while I selfishly want you here, I understand. My only true hope is for you to be happy.
With love,
Dad
I stare at his letter, my heart strangled in the grip of his words as tears cloud my vision. I pull it to my chest, immensely grateful he had that dream and the forethought to write me this letter. And although his message addresses something much deeper, I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t try to explain his addendum, why it was so important for him to write it in the first place. Maybe he knew how much I once loved this place and wanted me to give Haverberry another shot? But that doesn’t explain why he gave half of the bakery to Wilder. Or why he waited a year for the addendum to take effect. Although, that part I understand better. An allotment of time for grief. Because everyone knows things gradually get easier, and that at first your heart wants to scream so loudly that the stars cover their ears. No one is prepared to think clearly in the wake of it.
I sit on my bed, clutching his letter, the sound of my pulse thrumming in my temples, and I glance at my phone, wondering once again about Wilder’s part in my dad’s decision. Because even though we spoke about the bakery that night on the beach, I never asked Wilder flat out about the addendum and if he knew why my dad set it up that way. And the longer I stare at Dad’s note, the more the need to know grows stronger, becomes some visceral ache. My dad did this all with intentionality. He thought he was going to die and the last thing he did was write this note and that addendum. He was trying to tell me something or show me something. Logically, it somehow involves Wilder, and if I don’t know the reason, Wilder certainly must.
All of a sudden I’m standing, walking toward my phone, my desire to understand so pressing that I’ve abandoned caution and my tempered plan of not getting riled on Christmas.
I carefully fold Dad’s letter back up, slipping it in the envelope and placing it gently on the bedside table, followed immediately by hastily disconnecting my phone from its charger and pressing the on button.
As expected, there are about a million notifications from Liv. But there’s also one from Wilder time-stamped at 4:36 a.m., suggesting he slept about as well as I did. I click it open, pushing past the bright pang of anxiety.
I refresh my screen, thinking there must be more because no one would write such a short and cryptic message after last night. But that’s all there is. One sentence.
“Great,” I breathe, shaking my head. He knows I won’t be able to ignore this, that I’ll wonder about it until I finally cave. I growl at the text, ready to blast something back, but think better of it.
Liv said he had bad reception. And there’s nothing worse than having a tense conversation in shoddy, delayed fragments.
“My God, Liv totally played me,” I say, half in awe. I don’t know how she knew, but she definitely did. And before I can think of all the reasons I shouldn’t, I stuff my phone in my back pocket and leave the room. At the top of the stairs, I hesitate, but I’m too hyped up on emotion over my dad’s letter to reconsider. Because if I do leave Haverberry tomorrow, it has to be with a clean slate. I’m not leaving things unsaid, dragging my burning disappointment to California only to find out ten additional years down the line that I didn’t know the half of it.
No. Not again. Not this time.
I stop in the living room, where Spence and Jake are playing with a remote-control car that scales the walls.
“Hey, Mom! Look at this,” Spence says, and makes the thing do a loop around my mother’s sconce.
“Very cool. Just be careful with Grandma’s breakables,” I say, giving him a meaningful look, and plucking my purse off the coffee table.
“I will,” he says like he’s far too mature to be reminded.
“Going somewhere?” Jake asks.
“Yeah,” I say, and reflexively hesitate, which shifts Jake’s expression to something less smiley, as though my hesitation can only mean one thing—Wilder—and as it turns out, he’s right. I clear my throat. “Yes. There’s something I need to do. I’ll be back soon.”
Jake opens his mouth to say something, and I can already see it’s going to be an objection.
So I cut him off. “You got him, Jake?”
“Yeah, of course,” he responds, and tries to go on, but once again I cut him off.
“Great. There are drinks in the fridge and more sweets than you could ever eat in the kitchen. Spence can show you. See you both soon,” I say, and turn around, putting a kibosh on Jake feeling he can chime in on my relationship with Wilder. And I make a decision here and now that the next time we’re alone, I’m going to tell Jake to nix the flirting, that communication is important, and that I don’t want anything said or done that interferes with our ability to co-parent. Spence comes first. Always.