Pink Cake

On Friday morning, Emerson wakes early. “It’s the day of my party, Mommy.” I yawn and rub my eyes. Yes, the party. The party, anticipated for weeks now. Four little girls and Emerson. There will be crafts and a scavenger hunt and one of Ella’s cakes. “A pink cake with pink frosting, please,” Emerson says weeks ago.
I’m tired and the day hasn’t even started. I reach for my phone to see what’s in my inbox that I’m already late to deliver.

“You want coffee, Mommy?”

“That would be great, Bunny.”

This is her new thing, started earlier in the week. “I’m almost seven now, Mom, and I love to be your helper and I love the new coffee maker.” Love is emphasized both times. She bounds down the stairs and comes back with coffee she’s made in the Keurig. “I’m so excited for my party.” She hands me the espresso in the cup with red flowers. My favorite.

A few minutes later, she sits at the kitchen counter where I feed her breakfast. She likes pancakes and crisp bacon. Her sister likes waffles. I make both every morning. My mother would not approve.

I hear her voice in my head. “Two breakfasts? You’re running yourself ragged.”

I make sure to drip a little syrup on her bacon; she likes it this way. I set the plate in front of her. I find a fork and a napkin. I fill a glass with juice.

“No crying at my birthday party, Mommy,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone before biting into a piece of bacon.

Startled, I stare at her for a split second. Her face is nonplussed.

“Good bacon, Mom. You did a good job.”

I don’t reply. I turn away. I pack her lunch. I make her sister a waffle.

But I’m shaken. I’m ashamed.

“No crying.”

The tears fallen from the three sets of blue eyes in this house rival the Seattle rain that fell without relief from October to May.

I tried to hide it from them. I hid in the bathroom. I cried in bed after I thought they were asleep. But sometimes the tears came without warning. Sometimes I cried in front of them.

And no matter the two breakfasts and the birthday party and all the other ways I’ve tried to make their childhoods perfect, this may be what they remember of this year. “Mom cried. A lot.”

But I cannot take the tears back. I can’t erase the last year from their memories. Or from mine. It is part of our story.

I’m sorry for it.

Ella comes down to breakfast grumpy and tired, as she is every morning. Emerson’s singing. Ella shouts at her. “Will you please stop singing?” I play referee.

I think of my seventh birthday party. My mother allowed me to invite the entire first grade class. She planned games. A lot of games, as I recall. And she made a cake, a pink one, just like the one Emerson asked for. She ran herself ragged, I’m sure. After it was over, she probably collapsed into bed and thought, “Thank God this day’s over.”

But she certainly didn’t cry in front of me. I don’t know if she wanted to. I don’t know if she did it on the bathroom floor or at night when I was asleep. All I know is that I loved her more than any other person in the world and she ran herself ragged trying to make my childhood perfect. And all these years later, I see her as a perfect mother. I’m sure she would disagree and give me a long list of all the ways she failed, but I do not see them, do not remember them, do not believe they exist.

I remember the party that year. I remember every sacrifice she made for me. I remember every time she believed in me and encouraged me to be brave in this uncertain existence. I remember her sitting in the audience of every play. I remember her reading everything I wrote.

I am not my mother. I cannot be the kind of mother she was. I try. But, well, you know, I’m me. I laugh too loudly at the movies. I forget things. A lot. I’m distracted with work. I let the girls sleep in my bed. I allow them to eat what they like instead of what I make. I don’t volunteer at their school because I’m always on a deadline for the new book. I don’t make as much money as I need to give them everything I want to give them. Sometimes I let them watch television so I can make my word count.

I cry too much.

But despite all my faults and unhidden tears shed and the dark year we’ve had adjusting to our new normal, my daughters love me like I love my mother. Will they remember the good with the bad? I can only pray they do.

In this imperfect life, this hard life, all we have is the love between us, the grace we afford one another, the ways in which we hold each other in our darkest moments.

Love. Once again. We come to this. Just love. And a dash of pink forgiveness.

Tess Thompson is a mother before all else, and a writer after that. She has written two novels, “Riversong” and “Caramel and Magnolias.” Please visit her blog, Tess Thompson: Inspiration for Ordinary Life.