June Birthday

June Birthday

“Are you hiding something?” Mom said to John standing in the doorway of his room.

John was eight. Mom knew him well. She could watch him for less than a minute and know if he was sleepy, tired or just thinking too hard about something. She could anticipate his hunger, thirst, and his hesitation to try something because of how it looked. She knew his favorite animals, TV shows, and people.

They could meet someone new on the street and if she glanced at him, in seconds she knew if he was excited about it or wishing he was home instead. He didn’t even have to say anything. Mom knew her son.

But this was different. He was standing in his room, which was clean without her having to ask him to clean it. He was wearing clean clothes without her speaking to him about how long he’d been wearing the same shirt. And, he was smiling, so the chance of him doing this to distract her from some catastrophe that he was involved in before she found it, didn’t seem to be the case.

Mom was getting nervous. She knew him inside and out, or did she...?

“Are you hiding something?” she said again, quietly.

“Yes,” he said, pulling a box out from behind himself. “Happy Birthday Mom!!”

Mom looked at the box, wrapped with a yellow ribbon, sitting in his hand. She was shocked. “Oh, John! For me?” she said.

“Yes, Happy Birthday!”

It was a very lovely sparkly rock John had found in the garden. She loved it. She loved it so much she didn’t want to tell John her birthday was three months away, so she didn’t.

And that’s why, to this day, they celebrate Mom’s birthday in June, though she was actually born in September.