The white candle stood beside Audrey’s birthday cake every year since I brought her home without her mother. Just before her 15th birthday party, I found Hannah’s handwriting on a box hidden behind her closet shelf. Inside was something written for Audrey, but one line changed what the candle meant.
The white candle was already waiting beside Audrey’s birthday cake when I found the box. Fifteen pink and purple candles sat in a little glass bowl on the kitchen counter. The white one lay by itself beside them. It always did. I found the box. Audrey had been lighting it for her mother since she was old enough to hold a match. When she was six, I’d helped guide her hand. At nine, she’d insisted she could do it herself. Audrey had been lighting it for her mother.
Last year, I’d forgotten to buy matches, and Audrey had dug through the junk drawer until she found a half-empty book from an old restaurant. “You can’t forget Mom’s candle, Gee Gee.” I’d hugged her so hard she’d complained that I was messing up her hair. “You can’t forget Mom’s candle, Gee Gee.” Back then, I thought that meant the tradition mattered to her as much as it mattered to me. That morning, I had no reason to think differently. *** Audrey was at school, where her friends had apparently decided turning 15 required decorating her locker with enough streamers to cause a fire-code violation.
I had no reason to think differently. I had the afternoon off and one job before the party. Find the silver cake server. I’d misplaced it after Audrey’s 14th birthday, and after checking every likely drawer and cabinet, I finally went upstairs to Hannah’s old room. I still called it that, even though Hannah had been gone for 15 years. I finally went upstairs to Hannah’s old room.
Audrey sometimes used the desk, winter coats filled half the closet and wrapping paper lived beneath the bed. But Hannah’s yearbooks, stuffed rabbit, and ceramic earring bowl remained untouched on the top shelf. I pulled open the closet door and crouched near the bottom shelf. I pulled open the closet door. The cake server wasn’t there. I shifted a stack of old magazines. Nothing. Then I noticed a narrow space behind the shelf itself. Something brown was wedged against the wall.
I noticed a narrow space behind the shelf. I reached behind it and dragged out a small cardboard box covered in dust. At first, I assumed it was another box of photographs. Then I saw the writing across the lid. I sat down on the carpet. “For Audrey.” Hannah’s handwriting. I assumed it was another box of photographs.
The y in Audrey’s name curved too far underneath the word, exactly the way Hannah always wrote it. Whatever was inside, Hannah had put this box here before I drove her to the hospital. *** I rubbed my thumb across the ink. For a few seconds, I couldn’t open it. Hannah had put this box here. Fifteen years earlier, I had driven my 24-year-old daughter to the hospital while she complained that every pothole in town had personally declared war on pregnant women. She had spent most of the drive joking.
Then, about 10 minutes from the hospital, she’d gone quiet. She had spent most of the drive joking. “Mom?” “Yeah?” “What if I’m terrible at this?” I had glanced over at her. One hand rested on the enormous curve of her belly. The other twisted the strap of her purse. “You’re going to be a wonderful mother.” “What if I’m terrible at this?”
“You have to say that.” “No, I don’t.” She’d looked at me. I reached over at the red light and squeezed her hand. “And I’ll be right there whenever you need me.” That promise followed me out of the hospital carrying her daughter instead of her. “You have to say that.” Audrey’s father lasted barely a week. “I can’t do this, Giselle,” he told me. “Every time I look at Audrey, I see Hannah.” “She’s your daughter. She needs you.”
But he left, and I raised Audrey myself. “Every time I look at Audrey, I see Hannah.” *** I opened the box. Inside was a thick blue folder, a small white envelope, and a folded yellow sheet from the childbirth class Hannah had taken near the end of her pregnancy. My name appeared several times. I opened the box.
Emergency contact. Person authorized to make decisions if Hannah became temporarily unable to. Person she trusted to care for Audrey if something unexpected happened. The forms themselves weren’t what made my hands shake. It was the folded page tucked behind them. The forms themselves weren’t what made my hands shake. Across the top, Hannah had written: “If I don’t get to say this myself.” I stopped breathing for a second. “No. No, Hannah… No…”
I knew how irrational that sounded. She wasn’t sitting somewhere waiting for me to refuse. “If I don’t get to say this myself.” Still, some part of me wanted to shove the paper back inside the box and pretend I’d never found it. Instead, I unfolded it. The first line was written darker than the rest, as if she’d gone back over it twice. “If Audrey ever asks whether I died because of her, the answer is no.” Instead, I unfolded it.
The page began trembling between my hands. I stared at the sentence. Then read it again. Below it: “Mom, if you’re reading this, something went badly wrong, and I’m sorry you have to be the one holding everything together. I know you. You’re going to turn yourself inside out making sure Audrey knows I loved her.” “Something went badly wrong.” My vision blurred, but I kept reading. “Please don’t ever tell her I gave my life for her. I’m not giving my life for anybody. I’m having my daughter because I want her here. If something happens to me, that is not a debt she owes me.”
“Please don’t ever tell her I gave my life for her.” I covered my mouth. For 15 years, I’d told Audrey her mother had loved her before she was born. That part was true. I’d told her Hannah had been brave. True. I’d told her Hannah would be proud of her. I hoped that was true. I’d told her Hannah would be proud of her.
But there was one sentence I had used more times than I could count. “Your mom gave you life.” I’d said it when Audrey asked why her mother had died. I’d said it when she cried in elementary school because other girls had mothers at the Mother’s Day breakfast. “Your mom gave you life.” I’d said it the first time she asked whether Hannah had been scared. I had meant it as love. I had never heard how it might sound from the other side. ***
I looked toward the bedroom door. Downstairs, the white candle was waiting beside the cake. I had meant it as love. My eyes dropped back to the page. There was more. “Also, Mom, because I know exactly what you’re like, I need to say one more thing.” Despite myself, I almost laughed. That sounded like Hannah. “Do not make that poor kid’s birthday into an annual memorial service for me.” There was more.
I blinked. The room seemed painfully quiet. “If you want to tell her about me, tell her I got kicked out of choir rehearsal for laughing. That I hated tomatoes but ate ketchup. Tell her I once dated a guy for three months because I couldn’t figure out how to break up with him without hurting his feelings, which was silly and you were right.” “Tell her I got kicked out of choir rehearsal for laughing.” I could hear Hannah saying that last part. Then I reached the final lines. “Please let her birthday belong to her.” I didn’t read the next sentence right away.
I stared at those words until they no longer looked like handwriting. I could hear Hannah saying that last part. Every year since Audrey turned one, we had done the same thing. Before the birthday candles, I lit one plain white candle for Hannah. When Audrey was little, I would say, “This one’s for Mommy.” Then I told one story. Sometimes two. “This one’s for Mommy.”
By the time Audrey was 10, she’d started choosing the story herself. “Tell the one where Mom backed into Grandpa’s mailbox.” “Tell the one where Mom dyed your towels pink.” “Tell the one where she tried to make spaghetti and forgot the water.” “Tell the one where Mom dyed your towels pink.” I thought I’d given Audrey something precious. A mother she could know through stories. A thread connecting the day Hannah left to the child she’d left behind. My phone buzzed on the carpet.
A mother she could know through stories. A message from Audrey. “Gee Gee, can Mia and Zoe come at 5 instead of 6?” Then another. “And DO NOT let them see my baby pictures. Mia has no mercy.” I looked at the box. Then at Hannah’s page. Then I typed: “5 is fine. Baby pictures negotiable.” I looked at the box.
Three dots appeared. “TRAITOR 😈” I smiled. And then I cried so suddenly I had to put the phone down. Because Audrey was 15. Not a symbol. Not the reason Hannah died. Not the baby I’d carried out of a hospital while my own child stayed behind. Not the reason Hannah died. She was just a girl who wanted chocolate frosting, loud friends, and control over which humiliating photographs I showed at her party.
I wiped my face. The cake downstairs was strawberry. Hannah’s favorite. It had been strawberry every single year. I sat very still. It had been strawberry every single year. Audrey had never once asked for strawberry cake. I couldn’t remember ever asking what kind she wanted. The front door slammed downstairs. “Gee Gee?” I checked the clock.
School had let out early for teacher conferences. “Up here!” I couldn’t remember ever asking what kind she wanted. Audrey came pounding up the stairs, still wearing the ridiculous silver birthday crown somebody had given her at school. She stopped in the doorway. “Why are you sitting on the floor?” Then she saw the box. The teasing left her voice. Then she saw the box.
“Is that Mom’s?” I nodded. Audrey set down her backpack. “What’s in it?” I looked at Hannah’s page again. I almost said, “Nothing you need to worry about.” Exactly the sort of sentence I’d used whenever something hurt too much. “Is that Mom’s?” Instead I held the page out. “Something she wrote for you, sweetheart.” Audrey didn’t take it immediately.
“For me?” “And for me,” I said. She sat beside me. Our knees touched. I handed her the page. “For me?” Audrey read slowly. Her eyes stopped for a long time on the line about debt. Then she kept going. When she reached the birthday paragraph, she glanced at me. Neither of us spoke.
Finally, she folded the page along the old crease and handed it back. Neither of us spoke. “Gee Gee?” “Yeah, Audie?” She looked toward the hallway. “Did you already buy the white candle?” I could hear the refrigerator humming downstairs. “Yes.” Audrey nodded once. “Did you already buy the white candle?”
Then she started picking at a loose silver point on her paper crown. I waited. At last, I asked, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” She looked up. “Tell you what?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. Audrey stopped picking at the crown. “Oh.” That tiny word frightened me more than anything else she’d said. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Audie.” She pulled one knee against her chest. “It’s not like I hate it.” “The candle?” She nodded. “I know why we do it.” “But?” Audrey looked down at Hannah’s handwriting between us. “You cry before breakfast every year, Gee Gee. You try not to. But you do.” “I know why we do it.” My hand closed around the edge of the box.
“And you always look at the clock.” “What?” “On my birthday. Around lunchtime.” I knew exactly what she meant. The hour Hannah had died. Audrey had noticed. Of course she had. I knew exactly what she meant. “And then before I blow out my candles, everybody gets quiet for Mom.” “Audie, I never wanted you to think…” “I know.”
She looked at me quickly. “I know I didn’t do anything. I know it wasn’t my fault.” “Everybody gets quiet for Mom.” Then she rubbed the paper crown’s silver point flat. “But knowing that doesn’t stop it feeling weird.” I couldn’t find an answer. Audrey looked toward the bedroom door again. When she spoke next, her voice was much smaller. “How am I supposed to make a birthday wish on the day you lost your daughter?”
I couldn’t find an answer. I stared at her. All those birthdays. All those candles. All those moments when I’d watched Audrey close her eyes and assumed she was wishing for some private little childhood dream. Read also
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I’d watched Audrey close her eyes.
“What did you wish for?” I asked. Audrey didn’t answer immediately. Then she said, “Mostly?” She looked straight at me. “I wished Mom hadn’t died.” And suddenly I understood that Hannah’s box had been hidden for 15 years. “I wished Mom hadn’t died.” But Audrey’s secret had been sitting in front of me every birthday. Beside one plain white candle. I reached for Audrey’s hand.
“What do you want tonight, Audie?” Audrey’s secret had been sitting in front of me every birthday. She glanced toward the stairs. “I don’t want to throw Mom’s candle away.” “We don’t have to.” “Could we light it on her birthday instead?” I waited. “I don’t want to throw Mom’s candle away.”
“And maybe you could tell me stories about her then. Not hospital stories. Just Mom.” I squeezed her fingers. “I have plenty.” Audrey smiled. “And, Gee Gee?” “Yeah?” “I hate strawberry cake.” “I have plenty.” I stared at her. “You’ve eaten strawberry cake for years now.” “I thought it was important!”
I laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes. “What cake do you actually like?” “Chocolate.” “I thought it was important!” “Your mother hated chocolate cake.” Audrey looked at me. I nearly corrected myself. Nearly suggested vanilla. Instead I stood. “Good thing it isn’t her birthday.” “Your mother hated chocolate cake.”
*** That evening, 15 colorful candles covered a chocolate cake one of Audrey’s friends helped me pick up. Everyone gathered around. Out of habit, I reached toward the counter for the white candle. My fingers touched it. I stopped. “Audie?” Everyone gathered around. Audrey looked at the candle. “Not tonight.” I nodded.
She picked it up herself and placed it beside Hannah’s box. “We’ll need it on Mom’s birthday.” Then her friends started singing. “We’ll need it on Mom’s birthday.” For once, nobody paused for a memorial story. Nobody checked the clock. Audrey closed her eyes. Fifteen flames danced across her face. She blew. Nobody checked the clock.
Every flame disappeared. The white candle remained unlit beside Hannah’s box. And for the first time in 15 years, I didn’t ask what my granddaughter had wished for. The white candle remained unlit beside Hannah’s box.
