Let Her Eat Cake

‘Happy birthday to you.’ The lights switched off as Aisha’s family and friends sang the hollow, happy tune. But Aisha didn't feel happy. Twenty two. Another year older. Another year closer to settling down, getting a nine to five job, locking into a life-binding contract with another human and becoming a baby manufacturing machine. Aisha wanted none of it, and yet it was closing in on her, waiting to suffocate her. She was enjoying the darkness of the room until her mother rounded the corner with a gigantic chocolate cake. It was topped with twenty two, perfectly spaced, bright candles. The one thing Aisha had requested for her birthday had been ignored. She had asked for no cake. Her family knew how much she hated it. The taste. The texture. And yet here one was, walking toward her, glaringly bright in the darkness, like the light of death was coming toward her. And it was being served by her mother with a smile on her face. A smile made demonic by the candles that shadowed it.

Chantelle donned a smile as she balanced Aisha's birthday cake. To their friends and family it would look genuine and cheery. But she hoped that to Aisha it communicated an apology. She knew how much Aisha hated cake, but she could just imagine what their family and friends would say of her parenting if she didn’t provide one. Selfish. Uncaring. Neglectful. At least that’s what Chantelle’s own mother had said when she had mentioned there would be no cake. Her mother told her to buy the biggest one possible. The bigger the cake, the bigger the love shown. So yesterday Chantelle had bought the biggest cake she could find, no matter the cost. They would be eating it for weeks, but at least everyone would think she was a good mother. Especially her own.

‘Happy birthday to you.’ There was nothing happy about it. There was a cake making its way toward her and she had a mother who didn’t listen. Aisha had to look away from the candles. They were so bright that wherever she looked spots of colour in the shape of the flames followed. She closed her eyes and rubbed them, but the flames were burnt into her eyes. She shook her head, but they wouldn’t disappear. They just kept growing in size and changing from yellow to blue to scarlet. This would cost her mother. When she placed the cake in front of her, she would put her fist through it. Throw it onto the ground. Stomp on it until it was a paste. She let her head hang in her hands.

Chantelle watched Aisha furiously rub her eyes and felt a pang of guilt. She shouldn’t have let her own mother manipulate her like that, but that woman had a way of lowering her self-esteem. Her mother stood behind Aisha, not singing, but staring at the cake and shaking her head. Chantelle glanced down at the enormous cake, so heavy that it made her arms ache to hold it. It was beautifully decorated with dark chocolate trimmings, chocolate shavings covered the rich and buttery chocolate icing. There were even plump strawberries perfectly placed on individual swirls of chocolate icing. It couldn’t be the candles that she was shaking her head at either, because Chantelle had taken such care and precision with marking them out. She had used a ruler to measure it to the millimetre, because she didn’t want to give her mother any reason to criticise. But when she looked back up, her mother was pinching her forefinger and thumb together and mouthing a word. Small. Chantelle had the urge to throw the cake right in her mother’s face.

‘Happy birthday, dear Aisha.’ Aisha sighed as everyone dragged out the ‘sha’. She was getting fed up with the annual birthday songs, cakes and presents. Birthdays were no longer a celebration of life, but a commiseration of the end. Another year closer to death. With all the effort she could muster, she lifted her head from her hands and set her eyes on the cake. She didn’t want to grow old. She didn’t want to settle down. Work 48 hours a week. Buy a house. Be responsible for kids. To her, this cake represented all of that. She couldn't believe that her mother had bought her one. She began plotting the cake’s demise.

The baker had said it was the largest size available without adding tiers, but she should have expected this from her mother. It could have been wider than an elephant and taller than a giraffe, and her mother would still say it was too small. Chantelle would always be a terrible and incompetent parent in her mother’s eyes. Looking at Aisha, it appeared she was thinking those words too. Chantelle wanted to turn back. Take the cake back to the kitchen and pretend it didn’t exist. But the cake was becoming too much of a burden to hold it for much longer.

‘Happy birthday to you.’ Her mother placed the cake in front of Aisha. This was the moment to strike, but an image in the centre of the cake stopped her. It was a picture of her mother in the hospital, holding newborn Aisha, all red and looking like a lump. There was so much love in her mother’s eyes. So much love for that tiny lump.

Chantelle remembered that moment. The promise she had whispered to that baby girl to always be a good mother. To always have Aisha’s best interests at heart. To never criticise nor condemn Aisha, like her own mother did to her.

‘Hip, hip.’

‘Hooray.’

‘Have a lovely day.’ Her mother whispered into her ear. A special phrase that she only reserved for Aisha’s birthdays. Aisha looked up at her mother. The same love and adoration was still in her eyes. Her mother loved her and always would. Aisha might be getting older, but to her mother she would always be that little lump.

Chantelle kissed the top of Aisha’s head. ‘Blow out the candles and make a wish.’

Aisha sucked in a deep breath and blew out all of the candles in a sweeping blow.

Chantelle started to cut up the cake and placed individual slices on paper plates. She didn’t offer a slice to Aisha, because she knew the answer to that question. But Aisha reached across the table, picked up a plate and took a small bite. Chantelle wiped her eyes as she continued to cut and offer guests slices of cake.

‘What did you wish for?’ Chantelle asked Aisha.

‘That I won’t get a cake for my next birthday.’

Chantelle laughed at her brilliant and witty daughter as she offered her own mother a slice of cake. Her mother declined, leaning over the cake to inspect it.

‘You could have picked a better photo, Chantelle.’

Chantelle picked up the slice of chocolate cake and stuffed it in her mother’s mouth.