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On the morning of Kenji’s 17th birthday, Simone Bowman bakes a cake.
She flutters around the kitchen, her own mother's apron tied loosely around her waist, and muses on how the transition from two kids to three – despite what everyone says – was not difficult at all.
Kenji is a wonderful boy, really; polite, no trouble at all, and a great friend to Darius. Simone has to admit that the house was feeling a little empty after Frederick passed away. And then Darius went missing – her heart was in her throat, night after night, scouring the news for any sign of where her boy might be. The panic never left her; it followed her around like a shadow, because a piece of her was missing. She never felt the same. She never felt whole.
But Brand needed her; so, still, she stepped up. And the universe rewarded her for it – Simone has always believed in karma; whatever you give, she always tells her kids, you get back. And she did get it back. Darius came home; and, along with him, she gained another son. Their fractured family gained a new purpose. A new fourth member who, while he could never replace the father that they lost, gave the Bowmans a new definition of family.
She puts the cake pan into the preheated oven, letting out a preparatory breath as she turns in the direction of the sink that’s filled with the evidence of her early-morning baking extravaganza.
But as she turns around, she feels a presence behind her. She startles, dropping the oven mitt she’s just pulled off.
Kenji is too quick. He bends down to pick it up, gently moving past Simone to put it back in the drawer that she wasn't actually aware he knew it went in. He turns back to her with a small, nervous smile.
“Hey, Mrs. Bowman. Sorry if I scared you.”
“Kenji, honey, please,” she chides gently. “Simone is fine. You don't need to be so formal in your own home.”
She said it in such a way she’d hoped wouldn't alarm him, but Kenji’s eyes still widen in fear, and Simone worries that she's said something wrong. Does Kenji not want to be here? Did she overstep?
Before she can apologize, though, Kenji speaks again.
“Yeah, got it. I really am sorry, Simone.”
There's an awkward pause, during which Simone stares at Kenji and Kenji stares at the wallpaper peeling in the corner of the wall with the window.
“You don't need to apologize, Kenji,” Simone says, breaking the silence. Kenji doesn't reply, so she tries something else. “Where’s Darius this morning?”
“Still sleeping,” Kenji shrugs. “I got up kinda early and I didn't want to wake him.”
“That boy sleeps like the dead, that’s for sure.” Simone chuckles fondly. “I guess it'll be just you and me until the boys make their way down.”
“Yeah, guess you're stuck with me,” Kenji laughs awkwardly, reaching up to rub his eyes in a weak attempt at masking the disappointment on his face.
Simone frowns. She hadn't realized how Kenji might interpret her words; that it might sound like she didn't want to spend time with Kenji unless Darius was there as a buffer.
“Kenji, I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn't mean–”
“You don't have to be sorry,” Kenji says. “I know this isn't what you were expecting when your son came back from a deserted island after a year. You shouldn't have to worry about taking care of me – I know it's weird for all of you, having me around. As soon as I turn eighteen, next year, I’ll get my own place, Mrs. Bowman, I promise–”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Simone interrupts, her motherly instincts kicking in once again before her mind can fully catch up. “You know you’re more than welcome to stay here.”
“I know that,” Kenji says defensively. His eyes drift towards the tiled floor as he brings up a hand to scratch at the back of his neck, fidgeting under Simone’s gaze. “You’ve been amazing letting me stay with you. But… this isn’t my home, Mrs. B– Simone.”
Simone looks at him – this boy, who she only met recently, with the entire world at his feet, the only biological parent he has incarcerated due to his own choices. Choices that put his son in danger – but that’s a rant for another time. Simone doesn’t think she’ll ever run out of negative things to say about Daniel Kon and his parenting.
But Kenji is with her now. He’s with the Bowmans, and he has a chance to put his painful past behind him and start over with people who care about him. Simone’s heart aches. She wants more than anything for him to take it.
“You know,” she says, “I’ve found recently that home is more about the people you’re with than the place that you’re in.”
Kenji doesn’t respond – but he also doesn’t make any moves to leave the conversation, so she continues. “When Darius’ father died, the house felt so different. Empty. We’ve never had a home without him, you know. It was always the four of us – but it suddenly became my job as Brand and Darius’ parent to figure out how to… adjust our definition of home, with one less person, while keeping all of Frederick’s memories in our hearts. And it was difficult.” She remembers those first few weeks after the funeral, when she’d wake up in the morning and turn towards her husband’s side of the bed, only to find it empty. Her heart would shatter each time, morning after morning, but then she’d go into the bathroom and wash her face, put on a smile, and go downstairs to cook breakfast.
Her boys knew pain, but they also knew the steady, reliable, loving presence of their mother. They knew they could talk to her. The three of them shared everything. Fond memories, painful ones, tears, laughs, dreams, nightmares, and, above all, grief.
Kenji, though, has no one to share his grief with. No one had an experience with Daniel Kon quite like he did. There’s no one else who misses him like Kenji does – but there’s no one that he’s hurt quite like Kenji, either. Simone knows that there’s a delicate balance involved between Kenji’s painful memories of his father and the grief he has to have over losing a parent.
She aches to let him know that both of those things are okay to feel.
“It was difficult,” she continues, “living without him. But what got me through it – and what continues to get me through it – is my boys. No matter how much you think you’ve lost, Kenji, you’re never alone. You always still have something. One of the things that’s so difficult about grief is opening your heart to the love that’s still there, instead of closing it off because of the love you lost.”
“I don’t know how,” Kenji whispers brokenly. “I try to, you know? I try to just not think about it and go on with life because Darius is like a little brother to me – and we’ve got our other friends and we’ve been through all of this awful stuff together. It wasn’t just me losing my dad. And because he’s my dad it’s sort of like, do I even deserve to share grief with them? I can’t relate to Darius, or any of them, no matter how much I should be able to, because I was stupid. I thought I could make my dad care about me, for just once in my life, so I went and joined him instead – I mad all these stupid decisions just trying to make him love me and it backfired and now he’s gone and I can’t just pretend that I deserve to share in all that pain with my friends, considering I helped cause some of it!”
His chest is heaving by the time he’s done; sharp breaths that burn his chest and his throat on their way out, with not enough air coming in in their place. The room is spinning around him. The wallpaper he doesn’t deserve to recognize, with the small fruit on it all blurring together; the refrigerator, with pictures of Simone and Frederick and Brand and Darius, and old school drawings, and invitations and Christmas cards from a life that Kenji was never even in – one he tried to just insert himself into like he belonged, but he doesn’t, and he never will –
Suddenly, a hand is on his shoulder, and it all stops. His breath comes back with one final, deep gasp. His wild eyes meet the steady, comforting ones of Darius’ mother, who has pulled him into her arms. He buries his face into her apron, taking in the smells of flour and sugar and the laundry detergent she uses that Kenji cried over when he first smelled it on his own clothes. Because he wishes, more than anything, that he was allowed to call this place home. Simone is everything he’s ever wanted in a parent. Brand and Darius are his brothers. But no matter what he does, or what anyone says, he can’t stop feeling like an outsider.
“Kenji, shh,” Simone soothes, holding him close in a way he’s never been held in his life. He sinks further into her arms as she rubs small circles into his upper back. “It’s okay. None of what happened with your father was your fault. Darius understands that, and I’m sure that the rest of your friends do, too. The only one being hard on you here is yourself. So please, try to believe that you’re loved, and you’re wanted here. I know that we haven’t known each other for very long, but I already think of you as one of my boys. Let the people who love you help you.”
Kenji doesn’t know how long he stands there, crying into Simone’s apron. Slowly but surely, he calms down, the sobs slowing and the static in his head clearing as he steps back and looks up at Simone, embarrassment already flooding his cheeks. His face prickles with the drying tears and the blush under his skin, but Simone isn’t phased. She brings one hand up, brushing Kenji’s hair out of his face and wiping the stray tears that have collected under his eyes. “Do you feel any better?”
Kenji feels worn out, heavy, and more tired than he felt when he woke up this morning, but there’s also a sort of lightness that’s making its way into his chest now. He feels conflicted, still; on the sidelines of a game that he very much wants to play, but at least now he thinks he’d be able to recognize himself in the jersey.
“Yeah, I think I do,” he says. “Thanks.”
Simone pulls him into another hug. “Oh, by the way,” she whispers in his ear. “Your birthday cake is in the oven. Chocolate, your favorite. I hope it's okay if we celebrate after breakfast.”
Kenji buries himself further into her embrace. “It’s perfect… thank you, Simone.”
They pull out of the hug just as two sets of feet come thundering down the steps.
“Out of my way, Dino Nerd!”
“Hey, only Kenji’s allowed to call me that!”
“Last one in the kitchen’s a rotten egg!”
“Last one has to eat rotten eggs for breakfast!”
Simone chuckles as Brand and Darius race into the kitchen, Brand jutting his arm out to block Darius’ path as he sock-slides onto the tiles. “Ha, beat you!”
Darius lets out an indignant gasp. “Only ‘cause you cheated, cheater!”
The boys collect themselves in their own time, both rushing over and planting a kiss on each one of Simone’s cheeks. Brand ruffles Kenji’s hair and Darius slings an arm over his shoulder, pulling him close. “What’s for breakfast, Ma?”
“Ooh, you’re baking a cake?” Brand asks, peeking around Simone down into the glass door of the oven. She shoves him away good-naturedly, swatting at him with the oven mitt she’s holding. “It’s for Kenji’s birthday! Go away,” she laughs. “It isn’t even ready yet, and you have to eat real breakfast first! You guys want bacon and eggs?”
The boys all sit around the table as Simone returns to the stove, already reaching for the carton of eggs. Kenji finds himself following, stopping at the refrigerator to take out the package of bacon. He pulls out a cookie sheet from where he knows Simone keeps them, and the aluminum foil, and starts preparing the bacon for the oven.
“Kenj? What are you doing, sweetie?”
Kenji looks up to see Simone staring at him. Her eyes drift from his face down to the raw bacon in his hands.
“Oh, shoot,” he realizes. “I should’ve washed my hands first, sorry.”
He drops the bacon and heads for the sink, trying to pull his sleeves up to his elbows with his teeth as he goes. Simone laughs softly, approaching him and gently rolling his left sleeve, then his right, securely up his arms. “Now you should wash your hands, yes, because of the raw meat. But you don’t have to cook the bacon, Kenji. I can handle it! Don’t worry. Go sit with your brothers.”
“But I want to help,” Kenji says. “You– you let me stay here and–”
“Remember, we want you here. You don’t have to earn your place in this house,” she reminds him gently, sneaking a glance at the boys to make sure they aren’t being overheard. Brand is paying them no mind, tapping away on his phone, but Darius’ keen eyes are on them, and Simone knows that her son is bright enough to have some idea of what’s going on. Hopefully, she thinks, he can talk some sense into his friend later. “Now please, go sit down. But first – do you want one egg or two?”
“One’s fine,” Kenji says, with a resigned smile. “Thanks, Simone.”
“Two it is,” she winks, and Kenji chuckles as he heads back to the table.
When breakfast is over, Simone refuses to let Kenji help with the cleanup. She lets Darius know, with a twinkle in her eye, that Kenji has been wondering what the coolest thing his dad ever taught him about dinosaurs is.
And even though Darius has told Kenji countless dinosaur facts, his face lights up at the chance to talk about his dad, so Kenji can't even be mad. He glances over at Simone, who gives him another wink.
“Kenji’s got to learn our family history, don't you think, D?” she says. “Remember when the four of us went to the Natural History Museum in New York, and Dad almost got us thrown out by Security because he wanted to take a picture of you climbing up the big T-rex skeleton?”
Darius laughs at the memory. “Yeah, I remember… oh! Kenj! Did you know that the oldest ever dinosaur fossil discovered was from 233 million years ago? It was a Herrerasaurus in southern Brazil, and they only found it ‘cause it got uncovered by the rain…”
Simone smiles to herself as her son continues on about fossils. She leaves the boys to it, turning back to the kitchen counter to continue Kenji’s birthday cake. She shuts off the oven, then grabs a mitt and swings open the door, taking a quick glance behind her to make sure the boys haven't migrated into the hot vicinity. She pulls the cake out, setting it on the stove to cool.
Darius drags Kenji away to put on a movie, and Brand heads back up to his room, so she's able to work in relative peace as she prepares some frosting for the cake. She digs around in a few drawers until she finds a box of candles, and before long, the cake is fully decorated and ready to be lit.
She calls the boys back inside, smiling as she sees Kenji enter behind Darius. “Are you ready? It’s cake time!”
Darius and Brand let out whoops of glee as they go to take their seats at the table, but Kenji stands there, like he’s not sure where to go.
He’s prodded gently by Simone as she leads him, one hand on his shoulder and the other holding the cake, to the seat he was in before. She sets the cake down on the table in front of him and holds her arm out as a shield between him and the fire as she uses a lighter to light the candles.
They sing, and Kenji tries not to cringe down in his chair in embarrassment, but he also kind of enjoys it. A warm feeling envelops him as he takes in the glow of the flames with his makeshift family all around him.
Once he blows out the candles, Simone goes to get a knife from the drawer, and Kenji looks down to examine the first homemade birthday cake he's ever had.
Grateful tears collect in his eyes as he takes in the words on top, written in frosting with Simone’s neat cursive.
Happy Birthday, Kenji!
And when Simone cuts him the biggest slice – the part of the cake that’s got his name on it, in blue icing – and slides it across the table, he notices something else: Love, Mom, written in extra frosting, right on the rim of the plate.