I believed him.
Dad worked long hours while Anna cared for me.
She knew I hated crusts on sandwiches.
She sat beside me through fevers.
She checked under my bed when I was six because I’d convinced myself a raccoon lived there.
She never missed a school play, even the awful one where I played “Tree Number Three.”
Anna cared for me.
Anna never missed my birthday either.
Until the year I turned 13.
***
That year, Anna promised she’d bring my favorite chocolate cake and “a surprise you’ll understand when you’re older.”
At 13, my mind raced with different possibilities, but I assumed it would be something exciting.
Like a puppy or a trip.
Anna never missed my birthday.
Maybe even a car, despite having no license and no realistic reason to expect one.
I waited beside the window until the candles I’d lit as decoration melted crooked.
