Chapter 17
Ten years after the birthday banquet, Mabel turned sixteen in the same ballroom.
No dog bed.
No packed suitcase.
No tablecloth curtain.
She chose the guest list herself.
Corinne attended.
Celestine too.
Oliver arrived late because university traffic was terrible.
Normal.
At one point Mabel disappeared upstairs.
I found her in her childhood room.
Same windows.
Different furniture.
The blue rabbit sat on a shelf.
She had kept it.
I smiled.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
Then looked around.
“Do you remember when Corinne tried to give this room to Oliver?”
“Yes.”
“She was scared, wasn’t she?”
That surprised me.
“Yes.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
I thought.
“Of a future she couldn’t control.”
Mabel nodded.
Then:
“Are you scared of mine?”
Hard question.
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
I laughed.
Then she took my hand.
Not because she needed protection.
Because she wanted me beside her as we walked back downstairs.
Ten years earlier Corinne had believed Mabel needed a boy installed beside her before the world could accept her.
She had been wrong.
The world would make its judgments.
Old men would make assumptions.
Family would worry.
None of that needed to be solved while she was six.
That night, under the birthday lights, Mabel took her own seat.
Not mine.
Not anyone else’s.
May you like
Hers.
And nobody moved her.
