A Small Thing

For her fourth birthday, Emma wanted a jungle party, so that’s what Ben planned. He would take care of everything, he told Sage, Emma’s mom, because Sage was still knocked down by morning sickness that had gone on for months. “It should be called Nearly-too-tired-to-puke Sickness,” she told him and laughed her thick, scratchy laugh that he would always miss. “Or maybe What-was-I-thinking Sickness. Either way, I’m not cut out for this.”

Sage had started to show over a month ago, and that’s when she’d told Emma, though she hadn’t told Emma the whole story, so that now their daughter thought Ben was the dad, which could mean only one thing to Emma: her parents were getting back together. It had gone on long enough that now, neither one of them wanted to break the news. Which meant that Ben would have to do so because Sage avoided things whenever possible, bless her heart. 

Now, in Ben’s kitchen, she pulled a pink sequined crown from a grocery bag. “I got princess gear,” she said. She waved a pink star-wand in the air, then thrust it at Ben. “Poof,” she said. “Now you’re a dragon-slaying prince.”

“Sorry, can’t today,” he said, the reference not lost on him: those nights together in bed, the sweet, sleepy talk that followed sex, when she’d ask if he’d slay dragons for her. 

He unzipped a large duffle bag and pulled out what looked like a bright purple shag carpet.

“Oooh, go bananas, baby!” she said, and spun about, grabbing up the bag of princess paraphernalia and heading outside.

They sat the kids in a circle on the lawn, and Sage gave each girl a pink crown and wand and matching sequined cape. The girls were pleased, standing and twirling. 

“I want one,” Jasper Downing cried when it was clear Sage had emptied her bag. “I want a princess crown.”

The four other boys stared at Jasper, and then they too were calling out for crowns and wands, standing up to pull the capes from the girls’ shoulders. It had happened so quickly and unexpectedly, the parents just stared on at the melee of kids fighting over the flashing, pink fabric. Tuck, the ancient dog from next door, started to bark and howl. 

“Whoa, wait a minute,” Ben called out. He clapped his hands—clap, clap, clap-clap-clap—and like magic, the kids stopped and clapped back, then stared at him, waiting. He had no idea what to do next, except that he had a few seconds at best. 

“I’ll eat all the candy! Come chase me!” he yelled. 

In a moment, the kids swarmed after him, screaming, while the rest of the parents quickly hid anything pink and sequined. After the kids had tackled Ben, poked and prodded and sat on him, they lost interest. 

Ben snuck back into his kitchen. One disaster averted, he thought, as he now unfolded the purple, furry gorilla’s costume he’d rented complete with oversized and grimacing purple gorilla head. He zipped himself in, the head itchy and smelling of dried sweat of who knew how many others. He grabbed a handful of bananas and crept out the front door, circling the house. The eye holes were poorly placed, and he could only see out of one eye at a time, so it was hard to judge distances. He peered around the corner of the house and saw the kids milling about, and he knew Sage had told them something would be happening, but they needed to wait. He knew they were expecting cake. 

The previous night, he had practiced the loping walk of a gorilla in front of the mirror. He’d impressed himself. He made a good gorilla, and now, holding out the bananas as if presenting a gift, he stepped into the backyard, and lumbered towards them. He could see Emma among the kids, his sweet daughter on her fourth birthday, miraculously the only one wearing a crown, and he felt a bursting love for this kid just as she turned, sensing something, and stared right at him, her eyes wide. Then she screamed wildly, and ran behind her mother as all the kids started to run and shriek and search for a parent. He couldn’t see what was happening, then heard a snarl and felt Old Tuck’s teeth sink into his leg. 

Even after he’d removed the head and unzipped the body suit, after Sage had put the head on herself, after Emma had allowed her mom to lower it over her own head, their daughter was still a mess. The other kids now were recovered as if unfazed, eating snacks, and glancing around for the arrival of cake. 

Ben whispered to Sage, “Keep her company. I have to fix something.”

He took the sheet cake from on top of the fridge and opened its cover. Over the white icing they’d done a perfect computer-airbrushed image of the purple gorilla head, a voice bubble coming from its mouth that said, “Go Ape, Monkey Girl.” There was no doubling-down on this, he thought. No way to sell what he now realized was just plain bad planning. 

He found a baking sheet and lay it over the top of the cake. He closed his eyes, and pressed downwards to make a good seal. Then he flipped the whole thing over, and gingerly pulled the box free of the sheet cake. A slab of yellow, pocked cake with no writing, no icing, no nothing. He regretted his choice, but it was too late. He stuck five candles in it, lit the thing, and headed out into the bright, chastising light. 

After all the families were gone and Emma was quietly playing and recovering in her room, Ben and Sage stood outside and surveyed the yard. The half-drunk juice boxes, the plates of eroded cake, the pile of ripped wrapping paper from so many presents she didn’t need or want but thought she needed and wanted. 

Sage lifted a perfect, untouched square of cake from a plate, then thought better of it, and dropped it. “I don’t want another kid,” she said. “Not right now anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Ben gave a noncommittal shrug. What are you supposed to say to that? There were only wrong responses. 

“I have to tell her, don’t I?” she said. “It’s really over between us.”

“Sage…” he started, unsure if she’d made a statement or asked a question. “You have to tell her,” he said. “It’s got to be you, not me.”

“Not now. Not on her birthday.”

“And you thought birthdays couldn’t get any worse.”

“Let it be for a little longer. Just let her imagine it for a short while. Can we give her that small thing?”