“A birthday is just an ordinary day,” my partner says to me in bed, late, three nights before my birthday. We are finally talking after an entire day of complete disengagement, which is common in our relationship, him being very likely on the spectrum.
“But it’s the day you were born!” I say, “The anniversary of the day you came into this world, the day to celebrate that Yea! You made it another year!”
He snorts.
My son calls two days before my birthday and he sounds sick with a juicy cold as he mentions how I wanted to go hiking with him on my birthday. I say “No, I can’t get sick cause you know, I can’t get my customers sick (I clean houses for a living and my customers are frequently older and immunocompromised). And I add, “YOU need to be home in bed.” He acknowledges he’s pretty sick.
My partner spends Saturday, the day before my birthday, with his own son. I stay home and fantasy shop for cars online, then clean my car inside and out. I clean the kitchen. I walk my dog. I plan what I want to wear out to dinner with my partner, who says he will be back in time for us to eat out. I shower. My partner texts he will drop in on my mother before he drives all the way home so I don’t have to do it. He says this is his birthday present, doing the mother visit for me.
My mother lived with me last year, which was very convenient, but she whined and complained she wanted her own apartment back in the city. To make this work I need to do things like drive an hour to collect her trash and walk it over to the dumpster and go to the bank and exchange her twenties for rolls of quarters so she can do her laundry.
Finally, my partner comes home and we go out to eat, me in a little dress with a cool little jean jacket, so as to make it feel more special than grabbing a lazy bite to eat after work. But there isn’t a table available in the dining room so they seat us in the basement tavern, where there’s a guy playing music, which I like, but my partner says it’s too loud and he makes me repeat everything I say to him twice. He looks like he can barely tolerate the guy’s singing and sits with his elbow on the table, his hand holding up his chin. I give up talking.
The wooden seats feel too hard for my bony ass. I’ve ordered one drink (because it’s my birthday), and this was a mistake because all it does is make me really sleepy. The waitress takes forever to bring us our bill, which my partner reaches for, and I know he’s going to put it on his credit card because he still hasn’t found a new job. It’s my birthday so I don’t make a move for the check.
The next morning, my actual birthday, I get up and feel hungover from my one drink. I need an Elitriptan to alleviate the migraine I am getting. I go back to bed until lunch time and feel much better. My partner says, “What do you want to do today on your birthday?”
I say, “I guess we should work on the house, as it’s a mess from the construction project.” He looks at me as if that was the last thing he had expected me to say, but he says he will put up the closet racks himself and scrub the floors.
I work in the other section. Moving things, organizing, feeling lost in the mess. I cook lunch and do my dishes. I check my phone. It’s crazy who emails and texts when it’s your birthday. Not old friends or relatives, but the doctor’s office in NH, where I lived three years ago, and a few businesses wanting my business. Two of my kids and my mother left ‘happy birthday’ messages on my phone while I was working in the house. The birthday wishes sound forced. Obligatory.
I’m disappointed. I’m wanting cake. Perhaps a present. Maybe even a surprise. I can still make my own cake. It’s not that late, only 6 pm! But now my partner is saying he feels nauseous, which means ultimately, I would be eating cake alone.
You make the most of your life, your time, your days, right? I guess I could have done something different with my time on “my day” huh? And now it’s pretty much over and all the bullshit one hears one’s whole life about making “your day” special seems like a lot of hype. I would have had a better day if I had gone off by myself and just enjoyed the day, perhaps hiking alone, taking a picnic lunch. But I stuck around with my secret little hope—that what? That a singing telegram would show up at my door with a bouquet of roses?
Next weekend my big-girl-three-year-old granddaughter is having her birthday party. She has clearly captured the thrill, the pleasure, and the specialness of birthdays with her theme. She’s having—get this: a “Police Car-Cupcake-Rainbow” birthday.
I want THAT.
Karen Flynn has been published previously in theravensperch.com and in Flash Fiction Magazine.
