I don’t know if they bought the presents together, because Dad doesn’t really speak to me anymore. He still says things, but they’re not conversations. It’s just the words that get you through a day like, “You’ll be late for school” and “Dinner’s ready.”

Logan opens the presents and says, “Am I five now?”

“Yes, darling. It’s your birthday.”

“Where’s my…”

Logan’s mouth hangs open and his eyes go wide. If he says it, something bad will happen. He wants to say “mummy,” and I pray that he does. It’s the most dangerous, scariest, stupidest thing, and, if we get caught, everything is over, but I still want him to say it.

He doesn’t, though. He just picks up one of his new toys and fiddles with it, and I wonder when his real birthday is and what his real mum will do on that day.

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII

“It’s your favorite…remember?”

We’re sitting round the table with Will’s birthday meal, except Will’s not here, and the boy in his place doesn’t like it.

“What is it?” Logan asks.

Mum says, “Half-and-half pie. We have it every year.”

She looked delighted when she put it in front of him, but now she’s disappointed and her words sound like questions.

I remember when Will was two and Mum asked him what he wanted for his birthday tea.

“Pie,” he said, and, when she asked what type, he shrugged.

“Chicken,” I said.

“Steak,” said Dad.

And Will said, “Yep,” so Mum did both in one, with a pastry wall in the middle.

I had some from my half, Dad had some from his, and Mum and Will had a bit of both.

I thought our traditions would stop when my brother died, and I wish they would. But Mum wants everything the same…or, at least, the same as it can be.

The cream and the gravy are leaking together on Logan’s plate, and he makes a face and says, “I don’t like it.”

That was what Will liked best, so Mum says, “Just try a bit.”

Logan shakes his head, and I wait for the explosion. But Mum cuts his dinner into smaller bits and holds one out to him and whispers, “Please.”

“No!”

Mum looks at Dad, pleading with her eyes, and he puts his fork in Logan’s food and takes a bite.

“Delicious,” he says.

When he used to say it to Will, he stretched it out much longer—“Deeeeeelicious”—and my brother would laugh and clear his plate. But Logan doesn’t know that, so he looks at Dad and says, “No.”

It’s smaller than the one he said to Mum, but, somehow, it’s worse. And Dad doesn’t try again.