Chapter Thirteen: Nine Years, Four Months
"Hey, happy birthday!"
Michelle smiled. "Thanks."
"Did you get my card? I made it myself."
"Yeah, I noticed. Thank you."
Zoe tugged at her mother's sleeve and Michelle looked down at her, admonishing her lightly for her impatience before handing the phone.
Zoe clutched it to her ear excitedly. "I made Mommy a birthday cake!" she told Tony.
"Really? That's… quite impressive."
"Well, Grandma helped. A little."
Tony laughed. "I see. What kind of cake was it?"
"Chocolate. Mommy likes chocolate."
"Yeah, she does, doesn't she?" Memories involving Michelle and chocolate had suddenly surfaced in Tony's mind: Michelle scraping every last bit of chocolate mousse off the bottom of her bowl; the look of delight in her eyes whenever he gave her a box of truffles and how he was the one who got to feed them to her; the time she had had a chocolate bar in her briefcase and it had melted all over the important documents she was supposed to give to Chappelle…
Tony snapped out of his reverie to find that Michelle was holding the phone again and was looking at him apologetically.
"I keep telling your parents and brother and sister to come visit you, but they always say they would rather Zoe and I got to see you as much as possible. I suggested that one of them could bring Zoe, but…" She grimaced. "Sorry."
Tony shook his head. "That's alright. They write to me all the time, so it's not like I have no contact with them."
Even though he did miss the rest of his family, Tony found that he was glad that Michelle and Zoe were the ones he saw once a month. The thought of their next visit was what kept him going, more often than not -- he wasn't completely sure that a visit from anyone else would have the same effect.
Michelle let out a breath. "Good."
She handed the phone back to Zoe.