My mother’s birthday is Saturday. I am having her over to our house for an early dinner, along with my aunt and uncle who are flying in from Colorado to spend the day with her and my paternal grandmother. She is bringing her own cake because she wants an ice cream cake from Carvel and it is closer to her house than mine.

One of my favorite photos of my mother was from a birthday before I was born. There is a sepia tone to the photo and it is of her standing at a kitchen counter holding back her long straight black hair to blow out candles on a cake. My father had baked her that cake. It was round, white with lemon filling and icing. He forgot to put the lemon filling between the layers so he lathered it all over the top. Then he spread the icing on top of the filling. In the photo you can see the icing sliding off of the cake, running down the sides to a big glob on the plate. Despite this goopy birthday cake she is smiling from ear to ear because the man she loves has made a cake from scratch.

There is another photo from one of her birthdays. This time I am sitting in her lap. The cake is on a table in front of us. My mother is not smiling in this photo. Again, my father has baked the cake. He let me help until it came time to write Happy Birthday on the top in icing. Just below Happy Birthday he has written “to our favorite five letter woman”. To accompany the cake we have bought her a rhinestone necklace that spells “Bitch”. Looking back it is a miracle my mother didn’t grab her purse and cigarettes and walk out of our lives forever.

So Saturday I will endure my aunt’s repeated attempts to offend me. I will endure my uncle’s fanatically conservative views. I will spend the day with my mother on her birthday and hope she smiles when she blows out the candles.