“Are you ready for your birthday, sweetie?” Lara pulls the binder from me and holds it so that Riley can see it.
“What that?” Riley frowns in thought, and I remember she’s too young to really understand what a birthday is, even at two.
“We’re celebrating you being born,” I tell her. Riley digests this for a few moments, frowning more deeply, and in that moment, she looks almost exactly like a tiny version of Alexis, complete with the little crease between her barely-there eyebrows and the puckering of her lips.
“Mommy there?”
If seeing Riley looking exactly like Alexis brought back my sense of guilt, her question reminds me even harder of my loss. As much as having sex with Lara a week ago soothed something in me, in the moment, it’s just made me feel the loss of my wife even more when I’m home alone.
“No, sweetie. Mommy won’t be there,” Lara tells her gently. “Mommy is gone.”
Riley considers this, and I have to wonder how long it will be before I can explain to her that her mother isn’t coming back in a way that she’ll actually understand it.
“But Daddy will be there, and Aunt Lara, and your grandparents, and all our friends,” I tell her.
“We should make sure to invite some people who’ve got kids Riley’s age,” Lara remarks.
“I guess,” I say with a shrug. It wasn’t really a huge issue at Riley’s first birthday, but I can see where it would take some of the pressure off the adults.
“She needs to start socializing,” Lara says. “I’ve been taking her to the park sometimes, but she can’t keep up with some of the bigger kids. Besides, she’s going to be starting preschool next year, right?”
“Alexis and I were starting to talk about when she could start,” I say. I don’t mention that we hadn’t really come to a conclusion on that, we’d put it off until Riley would turn two.
“I think if she’s ready at three, it’ll make it a bit easier on everyone,” Lara says.
“We’ll talk about it,” I tell her. I want to get off the topic, but I can’t think of anything that we could possibly talk about that wouldn’t just end up reminding me again and again of the wife I’ve lost.
“What do you want at your party, Riley-baby?” Lara turns my daughter’s attention back to the binder, and I watch her guide Riley through the different choices, pointing out pictures. Riley, of course, isn’t sure specifically what she wants, she doesn’t even really understand what her birthday is going to be. But she gets excited at pictures of face painting and ponies, butterflies and flowers, and Lara takes out a marker to make little squiggles next to what my daughter likes the best.
Once Riley gets bored of this, and goes back to her toys, her sippy cup still firmly in her hands, I know I need to start getting us ready to leave. And we need to make at least one decision about the party.
“How are we going to split the cost?” I look at Lara levelly and she shrugs.
“I figured once we decide between us what budget we want to go with, we can split that in half,” she suggests. She hands me back the binder, flipped to the page that has the ballpark costs for each of the ideas she’s had.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell her. I don’t even really know what Alexis spent on Riley’s first birthday. Alexis planned it almost completely without me, just telling me what part I would play. So many things in my life that Alexis just did and handled, without telling me about it, and now I’m running everything myself, trying to keep things half as organized as she did. Even months later, I feel like I’m treading water, Riley held in my arms, waiting for my feet to touch ground or someone to rescue us.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lara
Riley is napping in my bedroom, and I’m putting together dinner for her, myself and Ethan, who should be arriving to pick her up in less than an hour, while I’m making phone calls to different people we’ve sent invitations to, trying to see if everyone’s received theirs yet.
We finally agreed on a ballpark budget, and on how we were going to split it, and what we were going to do for Riley’s second birthday. I’d taken on the job of taking care of the invitations, while Ethan insisted on calling the different contractors whose services we’re going to be using for the party — the face painter, the man with the pony, and a few others.
“Hey, it’s Lara. Glad I could get a hold of you, Giselle. I was wondering if you’ve gotten your invitation to Riley’s second birthday party yet?”
I haven’t spoken to Giselle in probably about three years. She was friends with Alexis, someone I knew from her circle but had never really been close to. Of course, she sided with my sister and with Ethan when the big drama exploded.
“Hey, Lara. I just got it in the mail today! You and Ethan are throwing the party together?” I can hear the tone in Giselle’s voice, and I’m not sure if it’s because she doesn’t think that it’s right for Ethan and me to be working together, or perhaps something else.
“Yeah, we figured it would be easiest that way,” I tell her.
“Well, as long as it’s all right if I can bring Logan and Charlene, I’m happy to come,” Giselle says.
I remember, fleetingly, that Giselle had twins sometime shortly after my sister gave birth. It had been in one of the phone calls Mom made to me, while I stayed away from my family.
“Absolutely,” I tell her. It’ll be good to have some kids around who Riley can play with.
“Are you planning anything in particular for the grownups? I could bring some wine with me,” Giselle says.
I laugh. “I think I’ve got that covered. Not enough for anyone to get
