"I think that's everything." Rebecca checked off the last thing on the list, then slid it across the kitchen counter. "Will you double check?"
Ellen studied the paper and glanced over her shoulder at the pile of decorations on the table behind her. "We don't have party hats. I can go pick some up at the dollar store."
When she didn't get a response, Ellen looked up to find Rebecca staring out the window.
"Hey," Ellen said. "Party hats?"
"The last time we were doing this," Rebecca said absently, motioning to the decorations. "James was here."
"Becca...hey, look at me." Ellen put a hand on her friend's arm and kept it there until Rebecca tore her gaze away from the window and met her eyes. "Please don't do this to yourself. Danny needs his mom to be here for him today."
Rebecca took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "You're right. I'm sorry. This last year has just been..." she trailed off.
"I know." Ellen said gently.
Rebecca straightened her shoulders and made for the table. "We should...we should get this stuff set up."
"Yeah..." Ellen eyed her friend warily, unnerved at how frequent these episodes were becoming.
Most of the time when Rebecca started to space out, Ellen could talk her through it and bring her back. But it was getting harder and harder to do that, and Ellen feared it wouldn't be long before Rebecca lost her grip completely.
An excited yell sounded from the top of the stairs as Danny came bounding down, disheveled brown hair and rumpled pajamas suggesting that he had just gotten out of bed. Small bare feet thumped loudly on the carpet as he tore across the living room and into the kitchen. "Ellen!" he yelled.
"Hey there, big boy!" Ellen caught him up and gave him a tight hug. Suddenly she found herself flashing back to this day last year, when Danny was still Neal, and it was his third birthday, and he was running into his father's arms—
She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. That was the past, and there was nothing she could do to get it back. This was here and now. The best thing she could do was focus on making this day special for Danny.
A glance across the table told her that Rebecca had just had the same flashback, and she wasn't handling it so well.
One thing at a time. Ellen thought. Focus on Danny first.
She turned her attention back to the boy in her arms. "And how old are you today?"
"I'm FOUR!" Danny grinned, holding up the appropriate number of fingers.
"That's right." Ellen tapped his nose, and he giggled. "Now, how would you like to go to the store with me?"
"Yeah!" Danny nodded eagerly.
"All right," Ellen set him down. "Go get dressed and we'll go."
"Okay!" Danny ran back towards the stairs.
When he was gone, Ellen turned to face Rebecca. "I know what you were just thinking about. Don't."
"It's all I can think about." Rebecca said.
"Think about Danny." Ellen coaxed her. "It's his birthday. Let's make it a good one."
Rebecca began picking up supplies off the table. "I'll start getting things set up while you and Danny are at the store." She gave Ellen a small smile. "Thank you. For...for keeping me on track."
The younger woman returned the smile. "We're all getting through this together, Becca. One day at a time."
Danny came back downstairs a few minutes later, dressed in white shorts and a black shirt with green sleeves. At four years old, his sense of color coordination was impressive. But it was his shoes that made Ellen do a double-take. The laces of his green Converse sneakers were perfectly tied.
Ellen looked over at Rebecca. "When did you teach him to tie his shoes?"
Rebecca blinked. "I didn't. He's been doing that for a couple of days. I thought you had taught him."
"Danny, how'd you learn to tie your shoes?" Ellen asked the boy.
"The man in the movie did it." Danny said with a shrug.
Ellen thought back two days. "The movie we watched on Friday?" Now that she thought about it, she remembered a scene where one of the characters had stopped to tie his shoe.
Danny nodded, and Ellen exchanged a surprised glance with Rebecca. Danny's intelligence was manifesting itself in new ways every day. Sure, he had an excellent vocabulary, and his drawings that hung on the refrigerator were a notch above the average preschooler, but Ellen was beginning to wonder if there was more to Danny than that. If he could learn to tie his shoes just by seeing it done in a movie, what else was this little boy capable of?
The thought stayed on her mind during the ten minute drive to the dollar store. In the back seat, Danny sang along to the radio, and Ellen couldn't help noticing that he was doing a pretty good job staying on key.
Hmm, we can add singing to the list of his talents, she thought as she pulled into the parking lot. I'll have to see what I can do to foster that talent.
"Danny," Ellen held the boy's hand as they walked in. "Do you remember which aisle the party decorations are on?"
Danny looked around, biting his lip in concentration. Ellen had started doing this whenever they went somewhere, asking him to find a particular section of a store. It was a good way to develop his memory and sense of direction. He was getting good at it.
"I think it's over there," Danny pointed to their left. "It's next to the toy aisle, if I remember right."
"Lead the way." Ellen let go of his hand and walked a few steps behind him as he navigated the aisles. In a few seconds, they were standing in front of shelves stocked with party favors.
"Nice job, buddy." Ellen smiled at him. "Okay, what color party hats should we get? Red? Blue? Green? What do you think?"
Danny wasn't listening. He was staring, transfixed, at a plastic gold crown with the words BIRTHDAY BOY emblazoned on the front. It hung near the top of the shelf, well out of his reach.
Ellen followed his gaze to the gleaming treasure. "Ooh, that's nice."
"Can I get it? Please?" Danny turned imploring blue eyes toward her and gave her his best smile.
"Hmmm..." Ellen pretended to consider it for a few seconds, watching with amusement as Danny shifted from one foot to the other impatiently. Of course she was going to say yes, but it was fun to mess with him sometimes. "All right."
"YES! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Danny leaped into the air and bounced excitedly as Ellen reached up and took the crown off the metal rack. It was obvious that Danny wasn't really interested in helping pick out the other party hats, so Ellen chose a multicolored package, as well as a bag of noisemakers, and they headed for the checkout.
They exited the store a few minutes later, and Danny tugged on Ellen's sleeve. "Can I wear the crown?"
"Don't you want to wait until the party?" Ellen asked him.
Danny shook his head. "I wanna wear it now."
"Okay," Ellen took it out of the plastic bag, pulled off the tag, and started to hand the crown to him. Then she stopped. "Wait a minute. If you're gonna wear a crown, you should have a proper coronation."
"What's a...cor-uh-nay-shun?" Danny sounded out the unfamiliar word carefully.
Ellen crouched down, balancing on her heels so she was at eye level with him. "It's a special ceremony," she explained. "When a young prince becomes a king, he has a coronation. He sits on a throne, and they tap him on both shoulders with a gold staff called a scepter. And then they put the crown on his head while trumpets play all around him."
Ellen stood up and glanced at the store front. Signs on the windows advertised the new summer items, which were set up just outside the double doors.
"Look over there, Danny," she said. "Do you see anything we can use for your coronation?"
Ellen already knew exactly what they could use, but she liked finding opportunities to teach Danny how to be observant.
"We can use those for the throne." Danny pointed to the two stacks of plastic chairs to the left of the entrance.
"Good idea." Ellen agreed. "C'mere." She picked him up and started to set him on the stack of white chairs, but he shook his head.
"I wanna sit on the blue ones," he said.
"Are you sure?" Ellen asked him. "The white ones are higher up."
"Yeah, but blue is a better color for a king." Danny replied. "Y'know, royal blue."
"Good point," Ellen agreed. She set him on the blue chairs. "Okay, now do you see anything we could use as a scepter?"
"How 'bout one of those?" Danny pointed to a box of foam pool noodles.
"Perfect," Ellen reached for a green one.
"Let's use a yellow one instead," Danny suggested. "Cuz yellow is close to gold."
"Very smart," Ellen said. She pulled a yellow pool noodle from the box and walked back over to the makeshift throne.
"There's one last thing we need," she told him. "Trumpets."
"You can use one of the noisemakers." Danny said.
Ellen pulled out the bag of noisemakers and tore it open. She took out a red one and held it between her teeth as she set the bag down on the ground.
"All right," She stood up straight, crown in one hand and pool noodle in the other. "Let's do this."
Danny giggled and squirmed on his "throne" in anticipation.
"Lords and Ladies," Ellen gestured to an imaginary crowd. "We are gathered here today to celebrate the coronation of Prince Daniel. He is turning four years old today, which means it's time for him to become king. Now, Prince Daniel?"
He grinned. "Yes?"
She held up the crown. "Do you promise to carry out the duties and responsibilities of your new kingdom, and to be the best four-year-old that you can be?"
"I promise," Danny said, placing his hand over his heart. Nearby, a woman exiting the store paused for a moment to watch the spontaneous ceremony.
"Then by the power vested in me," Ellen placed the crown on Danny's head and touched both of his shoulders with the pool noodle. "I dub you King Daniel, Birthday Boy Extraordinaire."
Danny stood up and took bows to his pretend audience while Ellen blew the noisemaker. Then she motioned for him to jump off the stack of chairs. He leaped out and she caught him in her arms, twirling him around as they both laughed.
"Okay," Still laughing, Ellen set him down, picked up the pool noodle from the ground, and put it back in the box. Then she retrieved the bag of party hats and noisemakers, and they headed for the car. "Let's go home and you can show your mom your crown."
Danny ran ahead and got in the back seat.
"You mean he's not your son?" The woman who had been watching them approached Ellen, a look of surprise on her face.
Ellen shook her head. "He's my best friends' son. I spend a lot of time with the family...I live next door to them...so he's...he's like a son to me."
"You don't have any kids of your own?" The woman asked.
Ellen shook her head again. "I'd like to someday. I love spending time with Danny."
"You're so good with him." The other woman said. "That little ceremony back there was adorable. I've never thought to do anything like that with my kids. Now I'm thinking I should. My youngest especially would love it. Robbie's about to turn four."
"Has he started preschool yet?" Ellen asked, wondering if the boy in question might be one of Danny's classmates.
"He'll start in the fall." The woman said. "At Jumpstarters. Mrs. Nolan's class." Jumpstarters was the name of the preschool program at the local public school. It was open to children as young as three, and Danny had been attending since the previous fall.
"No kidding." Ellen said. "That's the class Danny's gonna be in."
"Really?" The other woman raised her eyebrows. "We'll have to see if we can set up a play date for him and Robbie sometime soon. I mean if Danny's mom would be okay with it."
"Oh yeah, she would." Ellen assured her. Actually the information probably wouldn't even register on Rebecca's radar. Not with the way she'd been spacing out lately. Ellen had been the one to organize most of Danny's play dates over the past few months anyway.
"I'm Brandi, by the way." The woman extended her hand.
"Ellen." She shook the offered hand. "Nice to meet you."
Brandi dug a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse. "Here's my number. Call me sometime and we'll see what we can set up."
"All right," Ellen took the slip of paper and opened the car door.
"It was very nice to meet you, Ellen." Brandi said as she headed for her own vehicle. "I look forward to introducing Robbie to Danny." She called across the parking lot.
Ellen smiled and waved at her, then got in the car and started up the engine.
"What were you talking about?" Danny asked from the back seat, straining to see himself in the rearview mirror. He adjusted his crown and grinned at his reflection.
"Oh, she has a boy about your age." Ellen told him, catching his eye in the mirror. "His name's Robbie, and he's gonna be in your class in the fall. We're gonna see if you can meet him sometime before then."
"Okay," Danny said. "Why did she stop to talk to you in the first place?"
"She liked the coronation that we did." Ellen put the car in drive and gestured out the front windshield to the stack of chairs as she pulled out of the parking space. "She said she's never thought to do something like that with her kids, and now she wants to."
"It was fun," Danny agreed. "By the way, that got me thinkin' about something."
"What's that?" Ellen asked.
"Well, I'm four now," Danny reasoned, "and I went from prince to king. But there's nothing higher than a king. So what are we gonna do when I turn five?"
Ellen burst out laughing. "We have a whole year to figure something out."
When they got back, Ellen was pleasantly surprised to see that Rebecca had gotten almost everything set up already. The front yard of the Brooks' home was decorated with balloons and streamers and small plastic tables and chairs loaned to them by a local church Ellen had recently started attending. Off to one side, two long white tables were set up—one for the cake, and one for presents.
Danny got out of the car and ran across the yard. "Mom! Look at my crown!"
Rebecca looked up from the balloon she was tying to the porch railing. "Wow, that's awesome. Did you remember to thank Ellen for buying it for you?"
Danny nodded.
"Yes, he did," Ellen said, walking up to join them. "Several times."
"And we had a coronation." Danny informed his mother.
Rebecca cast an inquisitive glance at Ellen, who laughed. "Long story."
"I bet," Rebecca looked amused.
Danny headed for the front door. "I'm gonna go look at my crown in the mirror."
The door swung shut behind him, and Ellen turned to Rebecca. "I have to say, I'm impressed. You got all this set up in the..." she checked her watch. "...thirty minutes that we were gone."
Rebecca shrugged. "What you said earlier, it really motivated me, y'know? I mean, you're right. We've gotta make this day special for Danny. He comes first. Always."
Ellen smiled. This is progress.
She spent a few minutes helping Rebecca set up the last of the party decorations, then they went inside.
"I just realized Danny hasn't had breakfast yet. It's almost nine." Rebecca said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Usually he asks for something as soon as he comes downstairs in the morning."
"I think he was too excited to think about it today." Ellen laughed. "I'll go ask him what he wants."
She headed upstairs, following the sound of Danny's voice, and found him in his room. He was standing on his bed, still wearing his crown and holding a baton in his hand, giving a speech to all of his stuffed animals and action figures, which he had lined up in rows on the floor.
"Permission to enter the royal chamber?" Ellen asked with a grin.
Danny looked up at the doorway. "Look, Ellen! I have a whole kingdom now!"
"I see that." Ellen said. "Hey, you hungry?"
"Huh," Danny cocked his head to one side. "I was so excited, I didn't even think about breakfast."
They went downstairs and Danny ate a bowl of cereal, then went back up to his room to continue building his kingdom. Ellen alternated between playing with him and making the final preparations for the party, which would start at one.
Everything was ready by the time one o'clock rolled around and the guests began to arrive. Most of the kids there were Danny's classmates or other kids from the neighborhood.
Danny took great pride in showing everyone his crown. Ellen suspected he might have been more excited about that than he was about the growing pile of presents or the cake. The boy had an inexplicable fascination with hats.
It was such a perfect day to have a party outdoors, Ellen thought. The weather was cool, there was a light breeze, and the sky was almost completely clear, save for a few stray clouds.
One particular cloud caught her eye; it was almost perfectly rectangular in shape, with four white wisps sticking up on top. She turned to look for Danny. He was pedaling his new tricycle in circles on the driveway, gripping the handlebar with one hand and the string of a balloon with the other.
"Danny," she called to him. "C'mere."
He got off his trike and ran across the yard, balloon trailing behind him. Ellen knelt beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.
"Look at that cloud," she pointed to it. "It's shaped like a birthday cake."
Danny's eyes got very wide, and he took off running toward the porch, where Rebecca was talking to some of the other adults.
"Mom! Mom!" Danny grabbed her hand. "Come see this!"
Rebecca allowed him to lead her out into the yard. "What is it, Danny?"
"Look!" He pointed to the cloud Ellen had shown him. "That cloud looks like a birthday cake. It even has four candles!"
"Wow," Rebecca said. "You're right. How neat is that?"
Danny turned to her, his eyes bright with excitement. "Dad's telling me happy birthday from Heaven!"
Ellen's jaw dropped and she stared at the little boy in astonishment. Beside her, Rebecca recoiled, visibly taken aback by the startling statement.
Danny looked back and forth between them and tipped his head to one side. "Don't you think so?"
"Yeah," Ellen faltered. "Of course, that's...that's probably exactly right."
Danny looked to his mom for her confirmation. Rebecca was still speechless, and her eyes had begun to take on that faraway look that Ellen was becoming far too accustomed to seeing, but she managed to nod.
Danny's grin widened, and he returned his gaze to the cloud. Then he held up his balloon and let it go. "That's for dad," he explained. "It's gonna fly up into heaven and he'll get it."
The balloon floated higher and higher up into the sky and disappeared into the cake-shaped cloud. Danny beamed. Beside him, Rebecca was a million miles away.
Ellen winced. Aaannd so much for progress.