Chapter 1 — THE CAKE

The cake cost thirty-eight dollars and I had ordered it on a Tuesday.

Sophia turned five on the Saturday. She had asked for a unicorn, and then she had asked for a unicorn again every day for eleven days, in the flat determined way children ask for things when they have decided the asking is what makes it happen.

I left the plant at four forty. I picked the cake up at Sorenson's at five ten. It was almost dark by then — the second week of November, the sun going down behind the Kesslers' garage at ten past five like it does.

I remember the drive because I remember thinking the truck heater was slow.

Forty-one degrees on the bank sign on Ellery Road.

I turned onto our street at five twenty-two. Our house is the last one on the cul-de-sac, white siding, a balcony off the upstairs hall that the previous owner put on and that nobody has ever used for anything.

I parked. I took the box off the passenger seat with two hands, the way you carry a cake.

And I heard her.

Not crying. That is the part I want to be accurate about, because everyone assumes crying. She was past crying. It was a sound with no shape to it, low, coming in pieces, from around the side of the house.

I put the cake on the hood of the truck.

I want you to know that I put the cake down carefully. That I took two seconds to make sure it was flat. That is the last thing I did as the man I was before.