The Birthday !

The Birthday!

It wasn't just another September day, it was September 5th, Lynda's birthday! And what a day it was! The sun brilliant, the air so crisp and clear. The leaves on the maple tree had just begun to change into a pale crimson and soft gold, by October there would be an extraordinary array of colors to fill our New England skies.

Oh, how the excitement grew as we rode the school bus the five miles home. Earlene would be waiting for us with hugs and kisses, and that was the best part of coming home.

Earlene was our housekeeper, but in our hearts she had become our mother. She was a plump lady with soft curly gray hair, a tender baby face and thick glasses. She was the one that waited for us to come home from school, let us sit on her lap and told us story after story. She was the one that baked our birthday cakes, spanked us and wiped all our tears away.

Lynn was just three when Mom went away. Just a baby, left to me, to care for, to love, to teach and to grow with. I was all of five years old then, but now I was seven and it was my baby's birthday. And oh, what a birthday we would have!

When the bus came to a stop we were already standing in the aisle waiting to get off. We raced up the hill on the stone steps Daddy had just laid that summer among the iris's our mother had planted years before. We burst through the kitchen door like wild Indians (that's what Earlene liked to call us), the same way we did everyday.

I thought maybe a bolt of lightning had come down and struck us dead or the earth had opened up and swallowed us. Just inside the kitchen door there was an emptiness that took my breath away. Earlene's portable TV that sat on the buffet in the living room was gone , but maybe it was just broken. But where were all those pretty pictures Earlene had hung on the wall and where was Earlene?

I had Lynn by the hand now, I knew she didn't have any memory of the fear seizing my heart as we walked through the silence, the same silence I remembered when my mother left.

All Earlene's carefully arranged powders, perfumes and her favorite hair brush that I loved so were gone. The gasp in my throat echoed in the empty room as I remembered the birthday cake. It was there, in the refrigerator. It was all pink and white with flowers and Lynn's name on it. We had never seen a cake so big, it was enormous, taking up the whole top shelf by itself.

I don't know how long we stood there staring at that beautiful cake, but I'll never forget Lynn's pudgy little face all twisted and stained with tears. I still had her by the hand as I led her upstairs to our room. We crawled onto the big cast iron bed we shared and into each others arms. I barely heard her small whisper when she said " I love you Mommy ".