Emily's Seams

I felt exhausted when I got home. But good. It was easy around them.

I would have gone straight to bed but Jude called out to me from her recliner.

“There’s a card for you on the table.” she said. Her fingers were like the knotted branches of an old tree, abused by too many winters. They bumped up and down on Mr. Puggums’ bony body.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Hey, hun? Happy Birthday.” She didn’t look away from the TV as she said it but that didn’t bother me. It was actually her detachment that I took solace in. Neither of us had to feel bad about ignoring the other.

The kitchen was clean as usual. Jude barely ate and when I did, it wasn’t much. A pack of cheap noodles, a banana or some cereal. Such appetites didn’t really result in too many dishes.

The card’s envelope was pink this year. I got one every year on my birthday. I had never met my dad but he never forgot my birthday. Not really sure why he bothered. We didn’t meet for lunch, he didn’t tease me about boys, I never visited. I didn’t even have a picture of him. I know he had some of me but nothing recent. I probably looked the same.

My mom had always been careful to give me my birthday card when Julia wasn’t around. It wasn’t that Julia was a selfish child but she would have cried about it. Not knowing her father hit her hard. I wanted to just give her my cards, I didn’t care about them. Once the five bucks they always contained was tucked away in some cheap plastic wallet or underneath my mattress, the card was garbage.

One time, when I was fifteen, the card was knocked from its customary place of display on my window sill to the floor. I didn’t notice. It got crushed and torn and I should’ve thrown it away but I just didn’t care. I was busy studying or playing with Julia. My mom found it. She’d never made me feel bad before that day, not once. All she had to do was rescue it from my floor like it was a wounded bird. She sniffed a little as she carried it away to the kitchen where she carefully taped it back together.

“I know it doesn’t mean much now, Emily. But family is all you have sometimes.” She was crying. I had made her cry.

“It’s just a card.” I said. I didn’t want to take on those tears. I wanted some other reason for their arrival besides my own indifference to a father I didn’t know.

“Do you see anyone else in this house getting cards? These tell you that someone out there is thinking about you. That someone gives enough of a shit to remember your birthday.” Her voice was so quiet. Barely above a whisper.

“He doesn’t visit, he doesn’t call! Really gives a shit? Why doesn’t he come here if I’m so important? It’s because I’m not!” The louder I yelled, the more I knew I was wrong. But maybe I could drown out her accusatory whimpers.

She did stop crying but she wouldn’t look at me. “You’re right.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just left. The mended card was waiting for me on my bed when I got home.

Memories of my mom were now barely breathing but this one had survived.

This year’s card had a little girl sitting in front of a cake with smiling cats and dogs. Figures. He maybe saw me once when I was a baby and even he knows I don’t have any friends within my own species.

Happy Birthday to a Special Girl. The neat print of the card company looked cold and insincere compared to the scrawling in dark blue ink. Love dad.

And five bucks. For so many years these cards were minor hiccups in my life, unfortunate but mostly harmless reminders of the disjointed family I was a part of. I loved my mom and Julia, and they loved me, so I guess it used to be easy to dismiss these annual cards. But I was alone now and the cards had gotten harder and harder to ignore.

“Hun? You okay” Jude cawed from her recliner.

Fuck. I was crying. “Yeah, I’m going out for a bit.”

“Where to?”

“Just a walk.”

“Okay. Hey, will you pick me up some smokes? That pack you stole really threw off my budget and I’m almost out.”

“Yeah, I’ll be back in a bit.”

The night air was cold and felt so good, like a shock to bring the focus of my thoughts back. I was coming apart, there was no denying that now. I had just cried over a birthday card.