Nobody has ever heard of it. There is no version of the events of Kestrel Air A12 that anyone would ever tell in which the climax is a checkbox. It is also the only part of the whole thing that will still be doing anything in 10 years. The second slice of cake sat in Aunt Cecilia's refrigerator for 5 days. Cecilia had offered it to them every single day.
Tuesday, gently. Wednesday, casually, while making something else. Thursday, not at all, because she'd worked out by Thursday that offering was itself a kind of pressure. Zuri had wanted it on the first night and had said so loudly and then had looked at her sister and had said, "Actually, no, I'm good." In the least convincing voice of her entire life.
They brought it home on the plane in the same white box. It traveled 400 m in a carry-on, was slightly crushed on one corner, and by the time it reached Ada Hail's kitchen counter on a Sunday night, it was 5 days old and structurally a disaster. Adise looked at it and understood immediately that this was not a thing you throw away. Okay, she said. Saturday, you two, me and this.
Whatever's left of it. It's smooshed. Zuri said, "Yeah, like really smooshed." "Yeah, it is." Immi from the doorway said, "That's fine.
Saturday came." Adise had the late shift and swapped it, which cost her a favor she'd been saving. And she did not tell anyone that. She got a candle out of the drawer, one of the numeral ones, a nine, left over from a party she'd thrown two years ago and had not thrown this year, and she put it in a piece of cake that had been on an airplane and taken off a tray by a stranger's hand, and then had sat in three different refrigerators and had been 5 days old before it even got in the car. It was the ugliest birthday cake she had ever seen in her life.
She lit it anyway. Okay, she said. You're nine officially retroactively. Whatever. We were nine on the plane.
Zuri pointed out. You were nine on the plane. This is the part where I get to be there for it. Immani looked up at that. They sang badly.
All three of them in a kitchen with the overhead light on because Adise had forgotten to turn it off and nobody wanted to stop and fix it. Zuri did a harmony that was not a harmony. Immani sang about 40% of it and mouthed the rest. They blew the candle out together and then Zuri said, "Mom, tell her about the airplane part." Adi looked at Immani.