He stopped again when someone screamed. His eyes shot up and over, away from the audience of children. His white cheeks were slack and hollow, his mouth an oval of surprise. The balloon fell to the ground, half-formed. One of my friends moaned.
More screams. Adult screams.
The clown’s spell broken, I stood and looked toward the other side of the yard, where the tables were set up and the grill chugged smoke like a Christmas day chimney.
I saw Mom yelling and dragging her nails down her face. She wore a bright yellow dress.
One of my friends started to cry, and the clown was saying, “Oh no, oh God ….”
More adults gathered by the spot of the crash, and when I ran over to see what had happened—crossing out of the tent’s shade and into bright hot sunlight—I saw my dad on the ground, clutching at his chest. He was pale and all his teeth were showing, as if he didn’t have lips.
Soon after, an ambulance came, but by then he was dead. Mom said it was a heart attack.
I was furious. Furious at Dad for ruining my birthday party, at his dumb heart for attacking him, at Mom for leaving me that night with a neighbor—on my birthday!—so she could go be with Dad.
After she made me dinner, the neighbor, Mrs. Shephard, made a big deal about singing while she carried out a birthday cake. Six candles perched haphazardly atop, sticking up like weeds.
“Make a wish, Jonathan,” she said, and I was so mad and sad and confused I didn’t know what to think or what to wish for. The only thing I could think of—the only thing that came to my mind that night—was how angry I was at my father for having missed me blow out the candles on my birthday cake.
I wish Daddy never misses my birthday again, I thought, and blew out the candles.
I got all six.
7
ON THE DAY OF MY seventh birthday, I had not forgotten about my dead father, or my wish.
My mother, of course, went all-out for this one, trying to erase the ugliness of last year’s event. The mental scars. This time we didn’t have my party in the backyard, but instead went to a cool arcade that had rides and games and a prize booth at the end where you turned in your tickets for toys and stickers. I got an eraser shaped like a race car, a bunch of candy, and a pen that wrote in purple.
That night Mom tucked me into bed, kissed my cheek and wished me one last Happy Birthday. After the arcade, pizza and cake at home, I was wiped out.
I was asleep before she closed the bedroom door.
“HIYA, CHAMP.”
Something cold rubbed my scalp. Pushed through my long hair. The air felt damp, and I tucked the comforter higher to my chin.
“Jon, wake up buddy. Wake up.”
I opened my eyes. The room was blurry and dark.
A man sat on the edge of my bed.
I inhaled sharply and sat up. He lifted away the hand that had been stroking my head. “Whoa, whoa, bronco. Don’t you recognize me? How about I turn on a light?”
He started to reach for the small reading lamp on my nightstand.
“No!” I said. Then, more quietly, “It’s okay. My eyes are adjusting.”
He laughed a little. “That’s good. So, you do recognize me.”
I nodded. “Dad.”
His dark head nodded, and as my eyes adjusted, I noticed he wore the same thing he’d worn on my sixth birthday: blue denim shirt, khaki pants, and a Tigers baseball hat, the old-English D a white tangle on his forehead. “That’s right. You made that wish, remember? And here I am.”
Without thinking, I leaned forward and hugged him. He was solid, but cool, as if he’d been out in the chilled night air without a jacket and had just come inside. He stroked my back.
He smelled like dirt, but not in a gross way. Clean, like grass.
“I love you, Son,” he said.
“I love you too, Dad.”
We chatted for a while. I talked about school and the arcade. He laughed and held my hand. After a while, near midnight, he said he had to leave. But by then I was falling asleep.
THE NEXT MORNING, I WONDERED if it had been a dream, and decided it must have been. The realization left me both disappointed and relieved.
