Amy’s Birthday
by Kimberly Ashby
Amy burrowed further down into her blankets, the last remnants of her dreams fading away at the edges of her mind. Sunlight filtered into her room through the slats of the plastic blinds on the window. She pulled the blanket off her face and peered out, wondering why her mother hadn’t been in to wake her yet. Normally, her mother’s voice pulled her from sleep before the sun made its appearance for the day. There were always chores to be done and pets to feed before she wolfed down her breakfast and ran to catch the school bus at the end of the lane. Amy listened but didn’t hear the sound of her mother’s footsteps outside her door. She was wide awake now, wondering what had become of the normal routine of the day.
She threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of her bed, wishing she had worn socks to bed the night before as her feet touched the cold, wooden slats of the floor. She hurried to her closet to find her slippers, stuffing her feet into them as quickly as possible to ward off the chill that was creeping up her legs from the cold floor. As she turned from the closet to make her way across her room, it suddenly hit her. Today was her birthday! A mini celebration went off in her stomach as she remembered. It felt like thousands of tiny butterflies fluttering inside her stomach and made her want to jump up and down. She was eight years old today! That must be why her mother let her sleep in, she thought. She hurried across the room, slung open the door and headed for the kitchen to find her mom.
The sounds and smells coming from the kitchen made her hurry down the hall. Is that cake I smell? she wondered. She could hear her mother moving about the kitchen, rattling pots, stacking dishes. The sound of her mother in the kitchen was one of her favorite sounds in the world. It made Amy feel safe. She ran across the kitchen, grabbing her mother around the waist and burying her head in her mother’s apron.
“Is that my birthday girl? My eight-year-old almost-grown-and-getting-married birthday girl?”
Amy giggled at her mother’s words. “Mom, I can’t get married. I’m only eight!”
“Oh, that’s right,” her mother continued with the game they had played on every birthday for as long as Amy could remember. “You won’t be getting married until next year. I always get that confused, don’t I? Well, happy birthday, my sweet girl. I guess it’s just me and you for a while longer then, hmmm?”
Amy smiled up at her mother, watching as she turned back to the bowl on the counter and added a fine, silky sugar. Some of it floated into the air like a powdery cloud as her mother began to stir the contents in the bowl with a wooden spoon. There were so many delicious smells in the kitchen, Amy couldn’t decide which one she liked the best. She was sure she smelled chocolate cake, her favorite, and maybe biscuits and sausage, too. Suddenly, she was starving. As if her mother could read Amy’s mind, she pulled a plate out of the cabinet, filled it with scrambled eggs and, sure enough, biscuits and sausage and placed it on the table in front of Amy’s chair.
“Come and eat your breakfast, honey. I made your favorite this morning—biscuits and sausage. Nothing’s too good for my birthday girl,” her mother sang out in the happy voice she always reserved just for Amy. As Amy sat down to eat, there was a knock on the door. Amy and her mother looked at each other in surprise, and then both looked toward the door in unison. “Well, who in the world could that be?” Amy’s mother wondered aloud as she headed to the door.
Amy watched her mother open the door to find a man standing on the porch. Amy waited for her mother to say something, but she just stood staring through the screen door at the strange man, who did the same thing on the other side of the screen. Neither of them said anything; they just stood there staring at each other.
“Mom, who is that?” Amy’s voice seemed to startle her mother and she turned her stare toward Amy. The man still just stood there, not saying anything, but he was now staring at Amy too. “Mom?” Amy’s voice had a worried quality to it.
“It’s okay, honey, just eat your breakfast. I’ll be right out here on the porch for a minute. It’s okay, just eat.”
Amy could see through the window onto the porch from where she was sitting and she didn’t like what she saw. Her mother and the stranger didn’t look like they were talking friendly to each other. Her mother looked angry and was waving her hands around in the air the way she did when she got excited or scared. The man didn’t say very much, just listened mostly. Amy couldn’t hear what they were talking about, so she got up out of her chair and moved closer to the door to see if she could hear what her mother was saying. She was almost to the door when it swung open and her mother came back inside with the stranger trailing behind her. Amy shrank back as the two of them came through the door.
For a moment, no one said anything and all Amy could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Her mother looked worried and upset. The stranger was staring at Amy with a goofy smile on his face. Amy felt relieved when her mother walked over and knelt down to put her arms around her. Still staring at the strange man, Amy’s mother said in a shaky voice, “Amy, this is your father.”
Kimberly Ashby was first bitten by the “writing bug” in grade school when her short-story won first place in the third grade writing competition. The next year, her fate was sealed when she had a story published in a children’s magazine. A native Texan, now living in Houston, she completed her first novel this year, writes a successful blog, Pearls of Wisdom and Foolish Mutterings (http://www.writing.com/authors/kayjordan/blog ) and spends her time working on her second book while shopping her novel for publication. Contact Kimberly.
