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Despite her best efforts, Rachel Faucette could not stop looking out the front window. All day long, customers came in and out of the shop and she went through the motions, engaged in banter and gossip and fulfilled their orders. However, whenever the store emptied, she glance out the window every minute or two. Because on the other side of that small glass window, was her son Alexander and today was his 9th birthday.
Alexander was not spending his birthday as Rachel wished he would, bothering with his big brother or playing friends. No, Alexander was waiting for his father. The lawsuit James had been engaged in for years had finally been resolved only days earlier; the very next morning he was gone. Alexander was insistent that his father would return for his birthday.
“He promised me, Mother,” Alexander had told her repeatedly. “He promised that we would spend my birthday together.”
Yet, the birthday was more than half over and James had not arrived. Alexander awoke with the sun that morning and dressed himself in his special birthday outfit; he had picked out himself days before. He sat in a large wooden chair outside the front door and had spent the intervening hours looking up and down the street.Try as he might, Alexander could not contain his restless energy for long.. Every few minutes, he got up from that creaky chair and walked down the street, always maintaining a line of sight with that door at 34 Company Street.
Tucked under a back leg of a chair for safe keeping was a small, white piece of paper. This single sheet of paper container a poem that Alexander had written for his father. When Alexander sat down on that morning, he had been clutching the poem in his hands, eager to give it to his father the moment he arrived. As the sun rose in the sky, Alexander’s hands became sweaty and so, with the thoughtfulness and consideration that made Rachel proud to call him her son, Alexander had placed the paper gently under the chair leg to avoid ink smudges. Every time Alexander returned to his chair, he glance down to confirm the paper had not escaped..
As the day wore on, Rachel walked to the front door of her shop with increasing regularity. She would pause at a mirror to adjust her dark hair, pulled back into a bun at the back of her neck. Then, to avoid arousing Alexander’s suspicious, she would take inventory of a few objects or dust a display table before pausing in front of the open door. Sometimes, she spoke to him, encouraging him to come inside or go out and play with friends. She brought him lunch earlier in the day, which he picked at but few pieces of which actually entered his mouth.
Other times, she stood there silently and watched the street with him. She wanted to reach out to him, hug him, tell him that his father was a terrible man for breaking his promise and that she, James and him were better off without him - but she held her tongue and kept her feet in the doorway. This was Alexander’s first heartbreak, sadly occurring on the ninth anniversary of his birth, was clearly in no mood for a hug from his mother.
“Alexander!” A familiar male voice cried out from around the corner. Rachel held her breath as she followed Alexander, who had a broad smile on his face. Alexander snatched the poem from it’s safe spot beneath the chair and ran for the corner of the home, near tripping over his feet on the way there. Suddenly, before Rachel had a full view of their visitor, Alexander stopped short.
“Edward. Mr. Stevens. How nice to see you today,” Alexander said in a halting voice. For a moment, before he could blink them away, Rachel saw tears shining in his dark brown eyes
“Bonjour, Alexander!” shouted Edward Stevens. Edward and Alexander looked so much alike that Rachel thought of every visit with Edwards as a preview of what Alexander would look like in 12 months. Today, his hair was an inch or two longer than it had been the last time Rachel saw it; she wondered how long it would be before Alexander was declining regular haircuts in hopes of imitating the older boy.
Thomas Stevens looked down at the two boys and smiled. “Alexander, happy birthday. Edward and I wanted to stop by to give you a present.
As Edward handed the gift to Alexander, it was Rachel’s turn to blink back tears. Alexander had lived with James Hamilton his whole life, but now James was either too embarrassed or just could bother to recognize the boy’s birthday. Rachel couldn’t help but entertain a fantasy of what their lives would be like if Alexander had been raised with Thomas Stevens as his father..
Alexander ripped open the paper with all of the delicacy you would expect from a nine year old and a smile reappeared on his face “The Prince,” he whispered, brushing his hand over the title.
“Edward told me you already had a French copy,” Thomas explained, “and I thought an English one would help to further your studies.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stevens. Thank you, Edward.” Alexander took his poem, which he had been gripping tightly in his left hand, and carefully placed it inside the front cover of his new book.
“Can we go see the goat?” Edward asked excitedly, bouncing around Alexander and pulling on his arm.
“Yeah,” said Alexander, slowly. “Do you want some cake too? We made one for my birthday.”
The boys scurried around to the backyard as Rachel glance over and smiled the kind gentleman.
“Thank you, Thomas,” she said, as he waved away her appreciation.
“Ann and I enjoy seeing Alexander happy.” There was a beat as they were both reminded why Rachel’s fantasy would remain just that. “She told me at lunch that she had walked by your home this morning and saw Alexander waiting for James. It’s seemed like some distraction was in order.”
“I am thankful that the boys and I have a family like yours in our lives,” Rachel replied, hoping that her words and tone conveyed all of the feelings she had at the moment.
Thomas looked at Rachel and mischievous smile - so similar to Alexander’s - played at the corner of his mouth. “I have heard a lot about this goat. Can I see him too?”
Rachel smiled and hoped that her facial expression and the bright sunlight hid the sadness in her eyes. “Let’s go see him together.”