Chapter 20 - The Cake We Chose
Six months after the ruined wedding, Oliver turned five.
The legal matters hadn't disappeared. Our divorce case was underway, investigators continued their work, and civil claims over the forged loan remained active. Celeste's public image had collapsed, but I learned that the important thing wasn't watching her fall. It was keeping her away from my son's life.
Mercer Build had fewer contracts and stronger controls. I no longer signed anything without reading it. Judith continued safeguarding the trust as Hannah had intended.
Our home was quieter. It was also beginning to feel safe again.
Oliver's counselor taught us simple ways to talk about fear without making it the center of every day. Rebecca and Elena came over often. I kept my work phone out of reach during dinner.
On the morning of his birthday, Oliver stood on a stool at our kitchen counter wearing an apron three sizes too big.
"Can I do the eggs?" he asked.
"One at a time, chef."
He cracked the first against the bowl and sent half the shell into the batter. We laughed until he nearly tipped off the stool.
We made vanilla cake with too much blue frosting and strawberries piled in a crooked tower.
I asked whether he wanted a big party.
"Just the people who are nice to me," he said.
It was the best guest list I'd ever heard.
When everyone arrived, Elena placed Hannah's photograph beside the candles. Nobody pretended it was easy. Nobody told Oliver to stop being sad.
He looked at the picture.
"Mommy would like this cake."
"She would've loved it," I said.
Later, while the dishes soaked, he climbed into my lap.
"Daddy?"
"Yeah, buddy?"
"Are you ever going to have another wedding?"
I thought of the ring I'd left on a destroyed cake, and of all the things I'd ignored because I wanted a different ending to my grief.
"Maybe someday," I said. "But only with someone who is kind to us both."
He considered that.
"And they have to like foxes."
"Absolutely. That's nonnegotiable."
Oliver tucked his head beneath my chin. Outside, the first snow of the season softened the garden fence.
I couldn't undo the day a grown woman turned a wedding cake into a weapon against my son. I couldn't erase the nights he had been frightened to speak.
But I could listen now. I could show up. I could choose him without making him earn it.
The most important promise I'd ever made wasn't spoken at an altar.
It was spoken in our kitchen, over crooked blue frosting, to a little boy with his mother's eyes.
May you like
"You've got me," I whispered.
And this time, I understood exactly what those words required.
