Love Isn't Always Enough
The Tale of an Offending Piece of Chocolate Cake
The chocolate cake she spent two days making just landed on the floor. The room immediately went silent. All eyes focused on the painfully small eight-year-old birthday boy. The room wasn’t terribly crowded. There were five friends, an assortment of parents, two cousins, and an aunt. Everyone was staring, mouths gaped open. Their breath caught in their throats, waiting to see what would happen next. Suddenly, the little boy flew to his room, as fast as his legs would take him, and slammed the door. His screams echoed throughout the house.
Simultaneously, all eyes shifted to the mom who was still holding her phone, poised for the obligatory birthday picture. Her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. Her eyes darted around the room. They were all waiting for her response. They were all taking their cues from her, and she knew they wouldn’t understand what she had to do. She took a deep breath before she addressed them.
“I am so sorry about the cake”. All eyes shifted to the cake that landed bottom side down on the floor next to the table. The top layers had slid down the side, icing splattered out from the center, decorative touches strewn. Some of it could probably be salvaged, but she was sure no one wanted to eat floor cake. Without thinking, she reached down and in one swoop, slid her hand underneath the cake, then hovered the whole mess just a few inches above the countertop where she jerked her hand out from under it like a magician removing a tablecloth. This sent more icing flying when the cake hit the counter.
“Let me go check on Calvin”, she addressed the room again, then nodded at her husband and shot him a “good luck” with her eyes as she gracefully headed toward the shut door. He half-smiled back at her, nervously. She could feel their stares on her as she moved closer to the sounds of the raging child. Just outside the door, she paused for a minute, listening.
Kate knocked softly and waited a few seconds before she began to open the door slowly. Stuffed animals and toys were everywhere. He had already done an impressive number on the room in the sixty or so seconds he had been alone after pushing the cake to the floor and running away. She stepped over the chaos inching her way toward the tiny body that was now sobbing in bed. She rested her hand on his back and began to hum a song. Making sure to read his body language, she was ready to retreat if it was clear he wasn’t ready to be touched. He recoiled and pulled himself to the far end of the bed. She pulled her hand back. “It’s ok Calvin. I’m here when you are ready to talk”.
“I’m a bad kid”, he gasped out before sucking in more air for the next round of wailing.
Calvin had been her son for a whole four months. This home was his twelfth foster home since coming back into care three years ago. She wasn’t sure how many he had been in the two other times he was removed from his family. She had read the file. It was cut and dry. It talked about his health, education, but mostly, about his behavioral issues and reasons for removal. He was “difficult to place” the agency said when they called.
That file failed to talk about his bright smile, or his eagerness to help around the house. It did not mention that his reading level was several grades ahead of his peers. It failed to talk about his strange, wonderful, weird sense of humor. The file didn’t share how shy he was when he meets new people, or how amazing it was when he finally felt safe enough to open up. The file was all about the rages, destruction, and screaming. The file didn’t miss a single misdeed the child had done. The file knew all the hard things that had happened to Calvin, but it didn’t seem to know a single thing about Calvin himself. Kate was absolutely smitten with this tiny person in front of her.
“Calvin, you listen to me. You are NOT a bad kid. I am not even the tiniest bit mad at you. Who cares about birthday cake anyway”? This made the little boy stop wailing. He stared at Kate with puffy, angry eyes. The look on his face said she was a liar, and he wouldn’t be fooled. Kate smiled back at him and put kindness in her eyes. He began to sniffle instead of sob. He continued to stare at her, waiting for her to prove him right. Waiting for her anger. Waiting for her to let him have it.
“I don’t like chocolate cake”, he said quietly as his eyes looked down and away from hers.
She reached back out to him, and this time he welcomed the hand she placed on his arm. Ever so carefully he scooted closer to her until finally, he crumpled in her lap. She wrapped her arms around him and began to hum again. She rubbed his back for a few minutes until it seemed he had calmed down.
Kate cleared her throat then nervously began to talk. “Would you like to go back to the party? We don’t have to do the cake… or even the presents. I can just put the presents in your room for you to open later when you are alone. If you want, we can just go out and play some games with your friends and pretend like it’s a regular ol’ party instead of a birthday party.” Calvin stiffened. “Or I can go out there and tell them today isn’t a good day for a party. It’s up to you. We could watch a movie together after they leave.”
The allure of fun and games must have overridden the embarrassment Calvin felt about the cake incident. As they wandered back into the living room, Calvin held on to her leg like it was a life preserver and he was lost at sea. Kate told everyone it was time for games, bypassing any conversation of how awkward this party had become, or the incident before. The kids present were ready for this shift and jumped right into game time. As the party went on, even the adults seemed to be willing to forget what had happened.
The rest of the party turned out to be pretty great. Calvin watched the kids play games for a few rounds, then he cautiously joined in the fun. He was quite content playing and not being the focus of the day. He also seemed to thoroughly enjoy all the snacks Kate had planned. She had rented a popcorn machine, a sno-cone machine, and had an entire table of pseudo healthy snacks available to counteract the sugar. Calvin seemed to be having a great time, despite the rough start.
Kate had to front a few questions from concerned parents. At one point Her sister snuck up next to her and loudly whispered “He is lucky he isn’t my kid. He would've regretted pulling that crap. But I guess you’re just going to let him get away with it.” Dumbfounded, Kate made an excuse to get away from her. It wouldn’t have mattered. She had already explained the way they would have to parent when they became foster parents. Kate couldn’t understand why her sister insisted all the research and all the classes knew less than she did as a mom. It wasn’t like she was raising angels either. Kate had been present during a few uncomfortable moments at her sister’s house.
Eventually, the last guest left, the party mess had been cleaned up, along with Calvin, and Kate was finally tucking him into bed. She noticed the giant pile of unopened presents in his room where they had stashed them. “Do you want to open the presents tomorrow?”, she asked. “Oh no”, he replied coarsely. “It’s ok. You can just take them back to the store. I don’t need to open them.” He paused then continued nervously, “I was kind of hoping maybe, if it’s ok, do you think I could keep just one?” Kate wasn’t sure how to reply. “Those presents are yours. You can keep all of them until you don’t want them anymore; they are yours. Why would I take them back?”
Calvin looked at her questioningly. “Oh. My mom always took the presents back when the Christmas people brought them.” Now Kate understood. It hit her right in the gut unexpectedly. Sometimes he would say things about his past that stung. As an adult she knew she was not supposed to be shocked, so she made sure her eyes didn’t give away her surprise. “Oh. No, those presents are yours to keep forever.”
Calvin rolled over against the wall as he sleepily said, “Well, at least until I have to go to the next place. I like it here, ya know. I don’t really want to leave. No one ever gave me a birthday party before.” Kate tousled the straw blonde hair a little bit before she rose to leave. He seemed to already be sleeping. She had to get out of the room before the tears came.
Kate shut the door softly behind her, closed her eyes, leaned her head against the door, and let it come. Anger. Sadness. Pain. Confusion. It washed over her in waves. Everything that happened today, the cake on the floor, the staring faces. All the outbursts and hard moments from the last four months came rushing back. Every hurtful story she had heard Calvin tell her, every tormented detail from the file came rushing to her mind. She just stood there crying, letting it all out. Her eyes opened. Down the hall, through the doorway, she spied the edge of her kitchen counter. There sat that dumb birthday cake.
Before she even knew what she was doing she had scooped up the disgusting, discarded cake and a fork. Mindlessly she started shoveling it in her mouth. Tears were still forcing their way out of her eyes. Tiny sniffles escaped her lungs. Cake in, tears out. It was so moist and delicious. Her guests missed out, not getting a piece. For one fraction of a second, she wondered what about the cake had triggered Calvin. She pushed that thought down as she inhaled the next bite of delicious floor cake. She had managed to eat about a third of it before grief and sorrow came full force. She was broken, snotty, bawling. Chocolate cake crumbs trailed from her face, down her shirt, to the floor. Her teeth were coated in cake and frosting. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Snot leaked from her nose.
This is how her husband found her.
He calmly pulled open a kitchen drawer, reached in, and pulled out a washcloth. Once he wet it a little he came over and gently began wiping the tears and cake from her face. She took it as an offer to burrow her face in his shoulder and weep some more.
He held her firmly and began to hum. "They warned us. They said love wouldn't be enough. Are we in over our heads? I don’t understand how anyone could hurt a child, much less so many people hurting one child”, she forced out. “Me either.” That is all he said. They stood in the kitchen like this for a long time, crying, humming, hugging, resolved to try.
Calvin’s eighth birthday party was never forgotten. The guests remembered the awkwardness. The kids remember having a blast, even if it was weird. Kate and her husband remember the pain of the day. Calvin however never forgot how loved he felt. Maybe, he thought afterward, maybe love was real.
About the Creator
Jerene Buckles
Jerene is a mom of nine, writer, and burgeoning midwife.
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