AN: I do not own the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants or the characters and as just a fan I am likely to make mistakes with dates/times of when things happened. So I apologise if there are any mistakes as such.
Memory
"Happy Birthday to Perry and Bridget, happy birthday to you."
Bridget sat on her bed, a birthday celebration running through her mind so fast that she wanted to catch it. She looked at the small pile of cards and presents scattering her bed spread. It had been her birthday again, but there was no cake, or candles, or even Perry to share it with. There was a party planned for herself, Lena, Tibby and Carmen and she loved her friend's parents for the celebration. But this year she didn't want to celebrate with just her friends, she wanted her family. The memory all she had left of her eighth birthday, the final memory she had of a mother so happy that she cried as the candles were extinguished by her breath, overpowering her twin brother's tenfold.
"My little babies, growing up so quickly." Marly had sobbed over birthday cake, while Bridget and Perry ate theirs so fast, they knew they'd feel sick afterwards. But it was worth it, just one day every year.
Bridget picked up the present her father had left on the kitchen counter before disappearing off to work, too early to wish his children well on the day they became adults. But Bee hadn't minded, much. The card was pink, with balloons and flowers - the complete opposite to the cards that her friends, who knew her better than she knew herself, had given her in person. She wanted to laugh at how hopeless her father was, but the button making machine gift left a stinging sensation at the back of her throat. She wasn't the Bee her father knew, she wasn't even the Bee he would have remembered from before. She'd never really been this Bee, the girlie girl who wanted to make buttons. Had her father ever known his daughter?
"It's their birthday?" Marly asked, lay in her darkened room, the covers over her head.
"Just five minutes Marly, I know they'd like to see you."
The dreaded ninth birthday coming to mind. Bridget had followed her father upstairs to ask where their birthday cake was.
"I can't." Marly moaned, hiding her face so far into the bed sheets that even she wondered where she was.
Bridget had stood in the doorway and watched her father do everything he could to make their birthday as special as the last. But he didn't try hard enough, because their mother didn't come down. In fact, Bridget barely saw her for a week.
The sting in her throat turned to a lump as the memories created tears that threatened to escape. With one swift wipe of the eyes, she sat up straight, promising to defeat the demons of her past as she opened the button machine and pretended to be the child her father thought she was. If only to escape the truth.