Chapter 9 - The Birthday Table
Vincent did not rent a ballroom.
He did not close a restaurant.
He did not buy jewelry.
He baked a cake.
Badly.
Marcus found him at seven in the morning in the pastry kitchen staring at a collapsed rye pear cake with the expression of a man confronting organized betrayal.
“Did you open the oven?” Marcus asked.
“No.”
“Did you measure the baking powder?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“A spoon.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“What kind of spoon?”
Vincent pointed to a soup spoon.
Marcus walked away without speaking.
“Where are you going?”
“To find patience.”
The second cake worked.
Mostly.
Maya arrived at Teresa's apartment that evening expecting dinner with Teresa alone.
Vincent stood in the kitchen holding a cake plate.
She stopped.
“You ambushed me.”
Teresa called from the dining room, “I prefer curated surprise.”
Maya looked at Vincent.
“No guards?”
“Downstairs.”
“No giant gift?”
He held up a small paper bag.
She narrowed her eyes.
“What is that?”
“Coffee beans.”
She laughed.
“Acceptable.”
Dinner was roast chicken, salad, potatoes, and far too much garlic because Teresa believed recipes were suggestions written by cowards.
Before they sat, Vincent offered to open wine. Maya asked for sparkling water instead.
"I have an early shift."
Vincent immediately put the bottle away.
Teresa caught Maya watching him.
"He's trainable," she said.
"Slowly," Maya replied.
Vincent pointed a serving spoon at both of them. "I can hear you."
"Good," Teresa said. "Saves time."
The meal stayed deliberately ordinary. Nobody mentioned paternity. Nobody mentioned Angelo. Teresa complained about a neighbor's leaf blower. Maya described a customer who had tried to order risotto without rice. Vincent admitted he still did not understand why people put televisions over fireplaces.
The normal conversation mattered because it was the first time Maya had been in a Romano home without being treated like an emergency.
By dessert, she had stopped holding her shoulders so tightly.
Angelo was not invited.
That had been Maya's decision.
Vincent did not argue.
After dinner Teresa brought out an old photo album.
Maya groaned. “Oh no.”
“These are Vincent's embarrassing years.”
“All of them?”
Vincent said, “I can leave.”
“No,” Maya said. “Sit down.”
They looked at pictures of Vincent in high school with terrible hair.
Vincent and Teresa at the original restaurant.
Angelo younger, smiling rarely.
Then Teresa turned a page and went still.
A photograph showed Elena at twenty-seven in a white kitchen jacket, laughing with a tray of burnt cookies.
Maya touched the plastic sleeve.
“I've never seen this.”
Vincent leaned closer.
“I took it.”
“She looks happy.”
“She was furious. The oven thermostat was broken.”
Maya smiled.
Then Teresa found another.
Vincent and Elena standing outside the restaurant after closing.
His arm around her waist.
Her head on his shoulder.
Maya stared at it for a long time.
“I look like both of you.”
Vincent's throat tightened.
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
Not afraid.
Not angry.
Just studying.
“Yes,” she repeated.
It was the closest they had come to naming what was already true.
Teresa quietly stood and took plates to the kitchen.
Vincent almost followed to help.
Maya stopped him.
“Stay.”
He sat.
She closed the album.
“I've been thinking about what to call you.”
Vincent's heart began to pound.
“Maya, you don't have to—”
“I know.”
She traced the edge of the album.
“I don't want to call you Dad.”
The words hurt.
He let them.
“Okay.”
“Not because I never will.”
He looked up.
“Because right now that word belongs to a relationship we don't have yet.”
Vincent nodded.
“That makes sense.”
“I'll call you Vincent.”
“I've been called worse.”
She smiled.
Then she leaned forward.
“But I want to try having a relationship.”
His eyes burned immediately.
Maya raised a finger.
“Don't cry yet. I have rules.”
Vincent laughed through the pressure in his chest.
“Okay.”
“No surprise money.”
“Okay.”
“No using your staff to find things out about me.”
“Okay.”
“No talking to Marcus about my schedule unless it is genuinely work.”
“That one feels targeted.”
“It is.”
He nodded.
“And if I don't answer a text, you don't send five more.”
Vincent looked guilty.
Maya stared.
“You already did that?”
“Once.”
“Vincent.”
“Understood.”
She smiled.
“One dinner a week. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Don't negotiate.”
He raised both hands.
“Sorry.”
Teresa returned carrying the cake.
Maya looked at it, then at Vincent.
“You made this?”
“Yes.”
Teresa said, “Version two.”
“Traitor.”
Maya laughed.
They sang badly.
The cake leaned slightly to the left, but Maya ate two slices anyway.
"Be honest," Vincent said. "Is it terrible?"
"It tastes like effort."
"That sounds like an insult."
"It's not."
She scraped a little burnt edge from her plate and ate it.
Then Teresa gave her a wrapped gift: an old cast-iron skillet that had belonged to their grandmother.
Maya stared at it. "This thing weighs twelve pounds."
"Family heritage," Teresa said.
"Family weapon."
Vincent laughed so hard he nearly knocked over his water.
For a minute the room became what it might have been years ago under different choices: loud, imperfect, ordinary.
Maya closed her eyes before blowing out the candle.
Vincent did not ask what she wished for.
At twenty, she had already spent enough of her life answering questions other people had created.
Later, as they cleaned up, Vincent's phone rang.
Angelo.
He silenced it.
Maya noticed.
“You can answer.”
“He wasn't invited.”
“Answering a phone isn't inviting him.”
Vincent looked at the screen, then answered.
“Yes?”
Angelo's voice was weak.
“I'm at Northwestern.”
Vincent straightened.
“What happened?”
“A fall. Teresa isn't answering.”
He looked toward the kitchen where his sister was laughing with Maya.
“I'll come.”
Angelo was quiet.
Then he said, “Is she there?”
Vincent knew who he meant.
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Don't ask her to come.”
Vincent blinked.
“What?”
“I said don't ask her.”
For once, Angelo sounded like a man who understood the cost of taking choice.
Vincent ended the call.
Maya stood in the doorway.
“Is he okay?”
“He fell. He's in the hospital.”
“Are you going?”
“Yes.”
She grabbed her coat.
Vincent stopped.
“He said not to ask you.”
Maya paused.
Then slowly smiled.
“Maybe he's learning too.”
She put the coat back.
“Go.”
Vincent left.
Two hours later, sitting beside Angelo's hospital bed, he learned the fall had fractured his father's hip.
Pain medication made the old man unusually quiet.
Near midnight Angelo opened his eyes.
“Vincent.”
“Yes.”
“There is something else Elena left with me.”
Vincent sat up.
“What?”
May you like
Angelo looked ashamed.
“A recipe book.”
