The evening was beautiful. String lights. The city glowing below the rooftop. A jazz playlist James would have loved. The cake sat on its own table near the pool, and I caught myself walking past it three times just to look at it. The bakery had outdone themselves — it was our wedding cake, fifty years later, perfect down to the sugar flowers.
The “accident”
Janet arrived late, already halfway through a glass of wine she’d brought with her. She’d been making small sharp comments all evening — about the playlist (“a little sleepy, no?”), about my dress (“brave”), about the guest list (“cozy — I suppose that’s the word”).
I was across the rooftop, refilling the punch, when I heard it.
Not the crash first — the laugh first. That high, delighted laugh.
I turned. The cake table was empty. The cake — my beautiful three-tier cake — was on the rooftop floor in a sprawl of white frosting and crushed sugar flowers. And Janet was standing over it, one hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking.
“Oops, sorry!” she said, and laughed again.
The rooftop went silent. Someone’s glass stopped halfway to their mouth. Michael was at my side in seconds, his hand on my arm.
“Mom — don’t. She’s drunk. Don’t make a scene.”
Janet was still smiling. “It was an accident,” she said, in the tone of someone who has never once in her life believed in accidents. “These things are so top-heavy. Honestly, whose idea was it to put it so close to the edge?”