Keeper of the Light

“No.”

“Could you tell me what’s bothering you then?”

“I already told you, nothing.”

“Sweetheart.” He touched her arm and she snapped her shoulder away from him, a wounded sound escaping her lips.

“Would you please go away?” she asked.

He stood up and walked to the door. “I love you, Lace,” he said, before closing the door on her silence. He waited in the hall outside her room, and sure enough, her tears started again, worse this time, as though he had somehow increased her pain.

Now as he stood in the doorway of her room, he wondered how he could make everything up to her. The dolls stared back at him reproachfully, and the leather-clad, bare-chested young men on the walls leered. Well, he’d really given her something to cry about now.

He bought her a cake, chocolate with white frosting. He had the woman in the supermarket bakery write Happy Birthday Lacey, in blue letters amidst the sugar flowers on the top. He looked in the clothing store she used to shop in with Annie. The racks of shorts and T-shirts, skirts and dresses, overwhelmed him. He did not know her size. He no longer knew her taste. He finally settled on a gift certificate from the record store—he didn’t even know what kind of music she liked anymore—and feeling reasonably satisfied with himself, drove home to make her favorite chicken enchiladas for dinner.

The notecard in Annie’s recipe box offered him little guidance. Annie had obviously made up most of the enchilada recipe as she went along, and the little that was there was in her scratchy handwriting. He’d become good at deciphering it over the years, but just about all he could make out on this particular card was down in the lower right hand corner. Lacey’s fave! she’d written.

He called Nola. “Would you believe I forgot Lacey’s birthday?”

“I know, hon. Jessica told me.”

“I should have written it on the calendar. My memory’s not the greatest these days.”

“Don’t beat up on yourself, Alec. She’ll get over it.”

“I wanted to make those enchiladas Annie used to make. Lacey loves them, but Annie’s recipe is illegible. Do you have it?”

“Sure do. Let me come on over and help you.”

“Well, no, please. Don’t do that. Could you just read it to me?” Nola lived on the other side of the cul-de-sac and it would take her only a minute to come over, but that was the last thing he wanted. He wondered if she was aware of how carefully he avoided being alone with her.

There were more steps than he’d anticipated in making the enchiladas. He burned his fingers shredding the chicken, and destroyed four of the tortillas before he managed to get a system going for dipping them in the sauce and folding them quickly around the filling.

Lacey came in the back door at five-thirty and he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her close to him before she had a chance to object. She felt thin and stiff. The headset she wore was cool against his cheek and he could hear the faint rocking beat of the music. “I’m so sorry, Lacey,” he said. “The days just got away from me.”

She pulled away without looking at him. “It’s no big deal.”

She took the headset off and set it on the counter.

“Call Clay for dinner, okay?” he asked. “I made your favorite. Enchiladas.”

She glanced at the oven and headed toward the stairs.

“These are good, Dad,” Clay said, digging into the cheesy mass on his plate. The enchiladas did not taste like Annie’s and he wondered what he’d done wrong. Lacey hung her head over her plate, twisting her fork in the cheese, making a mess.

“Not like Mom’s, though,” Alec said, acknowledging his failure before either of them could.

“Mom put those little cans of green chilies in them.” Lacey didn’t lift her head.

“Ah,” Alec said. “I’ll know better next time.”

“Don’t bother,” she said, her voice sarcastic. Cruel.

Clay raised his eyes to Alec, incredulous. “You’re a bitch,” he said to Lacey, and Alec quickly shook his head at him.

“Let’s just get on with dessert,” he said. “I didn’t make it so maybe it’ll be a little better than dinner.”

The cake was waiting for him on the dining room table, and as he lit the fourteen candles it occurred to him that Annie would never have had a birthday celebration in the kitchen as he was doing. He hadn’t given it a thought. He and the kids had not eaten dinner in the dining room once since Annie died.

He carried the cake and its flaming candles into the kitchen, singing.

“Please don’t sing,” Lacey said as Clay joined in, prompting Clay and Alec to sing louder. Lacey clamped her hands over her ears. “Don’t!” she said. “I hate it!”

Alec saw the tears in her eyes and stopped singing, signaling to Clay to do the same. “Okay,” he said. “Enough of the entertainment.” He set the cake on the table and handed Clay the knife while he got the wrapped gifts from one of the cupboards. He placed them on the table in front of Lacey and felt suddenly mortified. There was a box from Clay—water shoes—and the thin envelope from himself. That was it. Annie always had dozens of things for her, for any of them. The table would be piled high with gifts wrapped in paper she had made herself. A day late and he still had not managed to do this right.

Lacey went through the motions. She genuinely liked the water shoes; he could see that in her face, and he was grateful to Clay for knowing his sister as well as he did. She thanked Alec for the gift certificate and then began idly poking at her cake. He felt desperate to make her happy.

“I have a check for you too, Lace,” he said, although he had not thought of one until this minute. “Fifty bucks.