My anger evaporated as I remembered Trent’s expression when the cuffs ratcheted shut. God, that had felt good. “Okay, I’ll give you that,” I said, trying to see him on my shoulder. “But it was fun. Did you see the look on Ellasbeth’s face?”

Jenks laughed, doubling up. “You should have seen her dad’s,” he said. “Oooooh, doggies, that man was more upset than a pixy papa with eight sets of girls.”

Ivy set the pool cue on the table and relaxed. “I don’t remember it,” she said softly.

Her lack of memory was disturbing, and trying to ignore that I was missing chunks of my week, too, I looked up as Ceri and Keasley came back in, the cake almost on fire from all the candles they’d stuck into it.

I couldn’t very well stay mad when they started singing “Happy Birthday,” and I felt the tears prick again that I had people in my life who cared enough to go through the misery of trying to pretend everything was normal when it wasn’t. Ceri settled the cake on the coffee table, and I hesitated only briefly at my wish. It had been the same every year since my father had died. My eyes closed against the smoke as I blew the candles out. They smarted, and I wiped them with no one saying anything as they clapped, teasing to find out what the wish was.

Taking up the big knife, I started slicing the cake, layering perfectly triangular pieces on paper plates decorated with spring flowers. The chatter became overly loud and forced, and with Jenks’s kids everywhere it was a madhouse. Ivy wouldn’t look at me as she took her plate, and seeing as she was the last, I settled myself across from her.

David followed Ceri and the cat to the piano, where she started playing some complicated tune that was probably older than the Constitution. Keasley was trying to keep the pixies occupied and out of the frosting, entertaining them with the way his wrinkles disappeared when he puffed his cheeks out. And I was sitting with a plate of cake on my lap, absolutely miserable and having no cause for it. Or not really.