Daniel put the letter down.
Grandpa was looking out at the bird feeder. A cardinal had landed on it. Bright red against the gray winter yard.
“I knew,” he said quietly. “About the cake. Your mother told me once, laughing. Like it was funny. That she forgot your name.” He shook his head. “I thought about that cake every birthday for twelve years.”
I got up from my chair and sat down on the bench next to him and put my head on his shoulder.
We didn’t say anything else that afternoon. We just watched the cardinal.
My mother came to the cottage once.
It was about a year after the wedding. A Sunday in March. We were on letter number fifty-two.
I heard a car door and looked up. My mother was standing at the bottom of the porch steps. She was wearing a plain gray coat. No jewelry. Her hair had gone gray at the roots and she hadn’t colored it.
