My daughter has never once in her life said “I don’t know” that fast. When Emma doesn’t know something, she thinks out loud. She asks questions. She wants to figure it out.
When Emma says “I don’t know” fast, it means she does.
Janice came back out pushing a cart. The cake was in a tall white box, three boxes really, nested together, and through the plastic window on top I could see the sugar flowers. Peonies and roses, pale pink and cream. Emma had shown me a hundred pictures. It was even more beautiful than the pictures.
I should have just taken it and left.
I didn’t.
“The woman who called,” I said. “Did she leave a phone number?”
Janice hesitated. Then she looked at her screen.
“She did. It’s on the note.”
She read it aloud. It wasn’t my number. It wasn’t Emma’s. It wasn’t anyone I knew.
