I snipped the green plastic wrapping off the stem of the final white lily and laid it across the dining table. The petals were thick and cool, smelling of cold well water and grocery store refrigeration.
“Forty-two dollars,” I said, clearing my throat to ease the tightness in my chest. “For her sixty-first birthday. It seems like the right amount.”
Noah did not look up from his phone screen. He sat on the edge of my kitchen table, his heavy work boots swinging slightly off the side, rubbing his temples with both thumbs.
“Do not go,” Noah said. “She will only make you feel small.”
“She is our mother, Noah.”
“She adopted us,” he said. “There is a difference.”
I tapped my index finger against my right knee, the fabric of my denim worn thin in that exact spot. I wanted to believe Clara had some warmth left under her starched linen collars, but Noah had always been the practical one. He designed municipal bridges for the county, working with steel and concrete while I drew corporate logo templates on a computer.
“I bought her favorite cake too,” I said. “The lemon one from the bakery on Main Street.”
Noah finally set his phone down on the chipped formica.
“She called me yesterday,” Noah said.
I stopped cutting the blue ribbon. “Clara called you?”
“She wants five thousand dollars,” Noah said. “She said her roof is leaking again.”
“Did you give it to her?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I told her to sell the Buick.”
My nineteen ninety-eight Buick LeSabre had a rusted bumper and a heater that only worked on high, but it was paid for. It was the only thing I owned that did not feel like a direct hand-me-down from Josh, our adoptive father who had passed away three years ago. Josh used to sit in his quiet wood-paneled study with his pipe resting on the desk edge, watching us play in the yard.
“She will be furious if I show up without the money,” I said.
“Let her be furious,” Noah said. “She has her own savings.”
“We do not know that for sure,” I said.
Noah stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the gravel parking lot below my apartment.
“She has the brick house,” Noah said. “She has Josh’s pension.”
“The pension was small, Noah.”
“She has enough,” he said. “Do not give her more.”
I gathered the white lilies into a tight bundle and tied the blue ribbon in a double knot. I had to know if Clara was really struggling, or if she was just testing our loyalty again. We had spent our entire lives trying to prove we were worth the space we took up in her house.
“I have to go,” I said. “It is her birthday.”
Noah turned around, his face flat and unreadable.
“She does not care about the flowers, Eric,” he said. “She only cares about who is listening to her.”
“She took us in,” I said. “When Elena left us.”
Noah flinched slightly at our biological mother’s name, then looked back out at the grey autumn sky.
“Elena left because she did not want us,” Noah said. “Clara reminds us of that every year.”
I did not have an answer for him, because we both knew the story by heart. We had been left with nothing but our names and a quiet anger that we never spoke about in front of Clara.
“We were four years old when Clara told us the story for the first time,” I said to him. “We sat on the rug in the living room, and she told us our real mother had walked out because she wanted a different life.”
Noah did not look up, but his shoulders went rigid.
“I remember,” he said.
“And now we are supposed to just ignore her sixty-first birthday because she asked for money?”
“Yes,” Noah said. “She has Josh’s study locked up. She has his books. She has everything.”
“I just want a normal family dinner, Noah.”
“We never had one,” Noah said.
I picked up the bouquet and my car keys from the counter.
“I will call you after,” I said.
Noah did not look back as I let myself out of the apartment.
The drive to Maple Street took fifteen minutes through the grey Indiana afternoon. The oak trees had dropped most of their leaves, leaving the brick ranch house looking exposed and small under the heavy clouds.
I pulled into the driveway and let the Buick idle for a minute. The rusted bumper vibrated against the exhaust pipe, making a dull metallic rattle that always made me feel conspicuous in this neighborhood.
Clara’s house was immaculate. The white shutters were perfectly aligned, and the lawn had been raked into neat piles near the curb.
I looked at the passenger seat where the lilies lay wrapped in butcher paper. There was a blue envelope tucked into the stems, addressed to Clara in my own neat handwriting.
I wondered if she would even open it before she complained about the cost of the flowers. Forty-two dollars was a lot of money for a graphic designer who was still living on freelance projects and coffee.
A curtain moved in the front window. It was Grandma Ruth, her pale face appearing for a second behind the lace before disappearing back into the dark living room.
She lived in a small cottage on Elm Lane, but lately she spent most of her days at Clara’s house, sitting in the kitchen like an old piece of furniture that had been moved but never unpacked.
I turned off the ignition. The sudden quiet of the car felt heavier than the engine noise.
I took the lilies from the seat and opened the car door. I decided not to ring the bell. I had a key, and Clara always complained when I knocked like a stranger.
The spare key was exactly where it had been for twenty years, hidden under a cracked clay flowerpot by the back porch. I let myself in through the side door, stepping onto the linoleum hallway that smelled of lemon polish and stale floor wax.
“Clara?” I called out, but my voice was quiet.
I passed the closed door of Josh’s study. The brass lock was tarnished, and the keyhole was dark. I remembered the smell of his pipe tobacco that used to drift under the door frame on Saturday mornings while he worked on the family ledgers.
