Today is my 10th birthday and none of the other kids from my school are invited. 

I could have invited some, I guess, but I didn’t want the ones who hate me to have a reason to hate me even more, because I didn’t invite everyone. 

So I decided that it would just be me, Mom and Dad, my little brother Michael, Grandma Deborah and Marcus, Grandpa Sam and Grandma Ellen, and Uncle Dave.  

The only girl I would have liked to come was Marie, but she moved to Los Angeles some time ago. And she hurt her hand in a winch on their boat, so she had to stay home.

Grandpa Calum and Sheila were supposed to have come over from Scotland, but they ended up saying they couldn’t afford it, even though Marcus said he’d pay for them. But Grandpa Calum said no. 

He always does, even though it’s over 20 years ago he and Grandma Deborah stopped being married. 

I wish he would say yes, one day. We don’t see him very often, and we can’t afford to go to Scotland right now either. And I’m not sure if my little brother can be in an airplane for that long … 

It’s a nice birthday party, I guess. 

My mom and dad have decided that we will celebrate at the new cafe downtown called Dalloway. It is the fanciest cafe in all of Yuma. It has a big room in the back where we can sit, just our family. They baked me a birthday cake which they put in the middle of the table now, like an island away from everything else.

Mom and Dad must have spent a lot of money because there is so much food, cake, and sweets. And I think they spent their own money because when I ask Marcus about it, he says it was “their idea”. 

Marcus looks pale. But he still smiles and he asks me a lot of questions about school. I don’t very much want to talk about school, but I do it anyway because I can see he is trying to be nice. Grandma Deborah hovers over him all the time. 

Their present to me is a trip to Disneyland, for all of us, with everything paid for. Mom was close to arguing with them about it but then I think she decided not to. I’m glad. I just have to find out when we can go. 

I don’t think Michael can come to Disneyland, though. He is autistic and does not like noise and many people. I wish he could come one day. I wish he would know how much fun it is.

Grandpa Sam talks all the time about the coming election. He hopes it will be Sanders vs. Trump because then Sanders will win by a “landslide”. 

Grandma Ellen looks like she doesn’t know where she is. I am afraid she’d feel alone, because Uncle Dave doesn’t want to talk to Grandpa Sam at the same time he talks to Grandma Ellen, and most of the others don’t know what to say to her. 

But while Grandpa Sam talks about the election, Dad comes over to sit by Grandma Ellen at their end of the table. He sits there most of the afternoon and tells her about how Michael is doing, about what he has been working on in the house and about Mom and me, of course. 

Most of the time he holds her hand. I sit with them, too, and I think Grandma recognizes me.

When the party is finished, a waiter—a smiling man named Len—gives me a birthday card with a picture of flowers and says it is like a ticket so you can go and have a free cake there another day.

At home, Uncle Dave has come up with a treasure hunt, where we are to search for a  treasure chest in the house.

He has put up pictures from an old movie he likes, The Goonies, under the garden table, behind the sofa, and in other places like that. 

I’ve seen The Goonies online and it’s funny, especially how the boys and girls dress and the bikes they ride. 

Now, the treasure hunt pictures have a riddle on the backside that gives us a clue as to where the next picture is.

I go with Mom and Grandma Deborah, and we help each other with the riddles, and with finding the next one. 

Grandpa Sam and Grandma Ellen have gone away again in their motorhome. I think they want to camp up near the Grand Canyon.  

Marcus has also left.  He had to fly home to L.A. for an important meeting. Grandma Deborah will fly home later. So it’s only four of us who are “Goonies”, as Uncle Dave calls us. (Dad looks after Michael.) 

There are 10 pictures all in all and we end up finding the ‘pirate ship’ which is the attic where there is a real chest with my present. I think Uncle Dave bought it while he was working in Africa.

“It’s from your mom and dad, too,” Uncle Dave says. “And Michael.”

It’s a tiny package, at the bottom of the chest, and Michael has written “HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA” in letters which are a lot straighter than what many of my stupid classmates can write. He has also written the numbers 1-10 on the card.

I begin to cry when I see what’s in it.

It’s a membership of the Arizona Sailing Foundation’s Junior Branch. Now I can learn to sail a dinghy!

“You always say you want to go to the sea and sail away.” Mom sounds tired as usual but she is  smiling. “Well, now you can practice in Arizona and then in the summer holidays, you can go and sail in the Marina del Rey junior club with Marie. Just don’t sail to the other side of the Pacific, okay?”

I just cry some more. Mom and Dad had said so many times I wasn’t old enough and that it was too far to go to Lake Pleasant from Yuma, anyway. 

But now I can go. I can train on weekends.

I still wish I could have had a normal birthday. It feels like it’s not supposed to be like this. That I am living in another world than the one my classmates live in, and perhaps they can never be the same.

But there is good in my world, too. 

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EMMA, 6 May 2016

End of “Ghost Hearts” part III

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Next up: MICHAEL

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Photo by Andrea Tummons on Unsplash

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41-070324.2102

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