2: 2
The cake was cut.
A waiter set out the plated slices, and Matthew handed the first one straight to Marlene Fox.
So easily. Like he'd done it a hundred times.
Before, Matthew would have handed the first piece to me himself, and said:
"The first bite goes to the person who matters most."
Apparently the person who mattered most had been swapped out.
My mother said nothing, only patted the back of my hand under the table.
The message was clear: Mom's right here, you don't need to worry about anything.
Then it was time for gifts.
Aunt Mamie went first, sliding over a rosewood box, calling it a belated coming-of-age gift for her son.
Matthew opened it. Inside was a designer watch.
Then my mother.
She took a fine ebony case out of her handbag.
"This is the pen I used to sign my very first contract."
Inside lay an antique signing pen, its barrel finished in deep-green enamel.
She looked at Matthew.
"Here's to your career going smoothly, Matt, and to you keeping steady in everything."
Matthew recognized the pen.
He'd grown up half in our house, and he'd heard my mother tell the story of that pen more times than he could count.
It was passed down, one generation to the next.
Giving it to him meant she approved of him. It meant he was to become part of the family.
Uncle Mason and Aunt Mamie both had a spark in their eyes. They knew exactly what that pen meant.
"Thank you, Auntie."
There was real feeling in his voice, as if he'd just accepted a promise.
Marlene leaned in, her eyes lighting up.
"That pen is so beautiful."
She gazed at the sapphire set into it.
"So there are pens like this?"
"Growing up, all I ever used were fifty-cent ballpoints. Write long enough and you get a callus on your middle finger."
She opened her right hand and showed us the inside of her middle finger.
There was a callus, faint, small.
Just like her, tucked quietly into a corner.
Matthew looked down at that hand of hers.
Then he put the pen back in the case and pressed it into Marlene's palm.
"It's yours."
The whole table went silent in an instant.
As casually as when he'd said, just now, "You make the wish."
"You're always saying you don't feel confident writing proposals. The signatures you sign with this pen, call it the confidence I'm giving you."
Marlene froze.
She looked at the pen, then at Matthew, then at my mother, and her face went red.
"No, no, Auntie gave it, I can't take it."
"Keep it."
Matthew pressed a hand over the back of hers.
"Auntie won't mind."
He looked up at my mother and smiled.
"Right, Auntie? Marlene puts her heart into her work. In her hands, the pen would do more good."
The smile was still on my mother's lips. She glanced at me, and her eyes said it plainly enough.
"Right. It makes no difference who uses it."
I was the only one who caught what that "right" meant. She'd already given up on Matthew.
Aunt Mamie hurried to smooth it over.
"Oh, that's just the good thing about Matt, he looks after the people under him."
"Marlene runs around for him all day, she's earned it."
She reached over and patted Marlene's shoulder, the way you'd pat your own daughter.
"And this girl's a credit to herself. The minute she joined, our whole project turned around. A little lucky charm, really."
Those two words, lucky charm, worked like an eraser, wiping away everything that had felt wrong.
Aunt Mamie added with a smiling face,
"Marina, don't read too much into it. Marlene and I just hit it off, it's like I've got an extra daughter."
I shook my head.
"Of course not."
Then I looked at Matthew.
"Today she makes your wish. Tomorrow she signs for you."
"She really can help you with a lot."
Matthew's expression stalled. He looked at me, and his brow creased.
He knew I was upset.
But Marlene blinked twice, and her lashes went wet.
"Mr. Morton, is Marina angry with me?"
Her voice was tiny, as if she'd been frightened.
"Should I not have come?"
"I, I'll give the pen back, I don't want it."
She shoved the case into Matthew's arms, her hand trembling a little.
Whatever hesitation had just surfaced in Matthew scattered at once.
"No one's blaming you."
He soothed her in a low voice.
"Sit. Don't overthink it."
Only after he'd calmed her did he lift his eyes to me.
There was impatience in that look, and one thing he didn't say out loud: Why are you being like this again.
I lowered my head and smiled.
Just then my father drew back the gift he'd meant to give himself, the one prepared to follow after my mother handed over the pen.
It was a kraft paper envelope.
Stamped with the Summers Group watermark.
Inside was the agreement transferring thirty percent of the shares.
Matthew saw it.
His gaze landed on that envelope, and his pupils tightened.
Uncle Mason and Aunt Mamie traded a quiet glance too. That gift was for the future son-in-law.
But my father didn't hand it over. He set it back where it had been.
"Since Auntie's already given you the pen, my own small gift here would look like nothing now."
My father said it without a flicker.
"I'll take this back. Let's get on with the birthday."
Would look like.
The words landed on the table, and dead silence followed.
Matthew finally sensed something was wrong.
He looked at me, then at my father.
But that "would look like" had already erased every possibility.
