There were three knights, each with his own plastic horse in armor, and for each knight a little blond princess waited in the shadow of an unopened box of waffle cones. Sarah lifted one of the figurines up into the light, where it floated on a stiff pink confection of skirts. The princess had no feet, but only a blank white circle of rubble under her skirt. Shaking her head, she laid it down again and picked up a pair of rust-colored oven mitts. She bent, first peeking into the oven, then pulled the door open and extracting a long golden cake. She laid it on the stove, on top of a wire rack already crowded with two other cakes, already cooling.

            
            Sarah stripped off the oven mitts and dropped them on the counter on her way out of the kitchen. The thunk of her boot heels disappeared when she crossed from glazed porcelain tiles to the eggshell carpet of the long dining room, with its high ceilings and buttered walls trimmed in white. She slipped behind the corner bar and, humming, dropped ice piece by piece into a fresh highball glass. Carefully, she poured vodka until the ice rose, clinking, flush with the top of the glass. She finished the drink with a splash of tonic and set it aside. Sarah wiped the counter down, and then her hands worked backwards, putting away the bottles, the tongs she had used for the ice, the enameled swizzle stick she hadn't bothered to pick up or use.

            
            Glass in hand, Sarah stepped back into the kitchen. Bending over a book filled with pictures of elaborate cakes, stacked and layered in fanciful shapes, she flipped pages, studied dragons and castles slathered with sugar. When she emptied the glass, Sarah crossed back into the dining room, hummed, poured more vodka, wiped the counter down again.

            
            After several circuits, dining room, kitchen, dining room, kitchen, Sarah stood slumped at the counter, her thin arms folded into a clutter of canisters and crumbs. Her heavy blond hair fell half-uncoiled from the remains of her chignon, and around her lay the mess of the cake. A cookie sheet covered with crumbs covered the back burners of the stove, but in front of that, on a long lacquered tray, the other slabs were stacked in three tiers and coated with thick gray frosting. Balls of fondant settled in soft lumps on a bamboo cutting board at her elbow.

            
            Sarah sighed, picked up a long-handled spatula, tackled the lumps in the frosting. When she touched the cake, the tiers jiggled and threatened to fall. "Goddam--" She bit down on the word and whipped away from the cake. Sarah swatted shreds of wax paper aside until she found her glass. It was empty again. She stared down at the last few slivers of ice, then tipped them into her mouth.

            
            The wall behind her rattled with the sound of a car pulling into the garage. Sarah straightened. She rinsed her glass, her hands. Quickly, she pulled down her sleeves, her hair; she ran damp fingers through the weight of it and smoothed back loose strands. When the door opened, she was composed, leaning into the crook of the counter, arms crossed over her chestnut sweater. "Hello, Charles."

            
            Charles, taller and blonder in ash-colored wool, stopped with one hand still pressed against the open door. "Hey there," he said slowly, as though tasting the words. He pushed the door closed with his foot, then looked down, tugged his sleeves into place, flicked a ball of lint from the cuffs of his crisp button-down. "Have you had a good day?"

            
            She asked: "Were you at the office?"

            
            "Yep."

            
            "You also worked last Saturday."

            
            "Just 'til noon," he said.

            
            "I would like to be informed, is all." Sarah picked up a long wooden spoon and jabbed it into a bowl of white frosting. "If your schedule is going to change, I would like to be informed. I do have meals to plan."

            
            Charles stepped up to the stove, inches away from Sarah, watching as she added red food coloring; drop by drop, it bled into the white frosting. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers.

            
            "Jake isn't here," she said. "I don't know where he is."

            
            "He called me."

            
            "Oh, of course he did." Sarah grabbed a waffle cone from a teetering stack, slapped pink frosting down one side, then the other. "And yet I'm the one spending all day in the kitchen working on his birthday cake."

            
            "I know you've been working hard. Jake will appreciate it."

            
            "That would be an interesting change from the day-to-day." Sarah picked up another cone. It cracked in her hands and she threw the pieces down onto the counter. "This is ridiculous. Everything is falling apart."

            
            Charles sucked in his lower lip and swung his head from Sarah to the arc of crumbs across the granite countertop. A jagged chunk of waffle cone floated in the icing. "Hey," he said, and, pulling one hand out of his pocket, he touched her shoulder. "If this is giving you a hard time, you know we can always just pick up a cake. You don't have to go through all of this."

            
            "Well, you better make sure these are on it." Sarah pulled away and groped for the little princess figurines in their puffed skirts. "Jake, he's just got to have these princesses."

            
            "What about those?" Charles thrust his chin at the white knights. "Won't I need all those?"

            
            "Oh no," Sarah said, dumping the princesses into Charles's cupped hands. "I bought those. Jake didn't want those. He only wanted pretty pink princesses." Her eyes, oyster shell gray, narrowed to slits. She elbowed past him. "God, Charles. You refuse to see what's right in front of you."

            
            "Sarah."

            
            She blanched when he spoke, but did not turn around. Charles lined the princesses up on the edge of the stove, laying them out one by one. "Just what is it that you're saying, Sarah?"

            
            "Your son--"

            
            "My son?" Charles reached again for her shoulder, but Sarah slid away. "You offered to adopt my son when we got married. You didn't have to, no. No. But you said he needed a mother. You said you wanted to."

            
            She turned around, facing him, hands digging into her hips. "Oh, come on. How could I not? How could I marry you without adopting your son?"

            
            "You could have been honest--"

            
            "That's no choice," she said, right over him. "No one does that."

            
            "You offered to," he said again. "It was your idea."

            
            "Things were different then. That was before the princesses and the singing and—"

            
            "Sarah, for chrissakes! He's just in middle school. He's not anything yet."

            
            "He's turning thirteen," Sarah said. "He's going to be a teenager. A young man."

            
            "He's been through a lot."

            
            "Charles, you need to see the point."

            
            Through clenched teeth, he said, "What point? Tell me the point, please."

            
            "The point," Sarah said, "is that your son has no idea how to be a man."

            
            "What?"

            
            "And how could he? You coddle him."

            
            "What you're saying is insane."

            
            "You coddle him," Sarah repeated. "Shelter Jake, protect Jake. Jake is so fragile. Jake lost his mother."

            
            "Don't. Don't you start on this."

            
            "It was years ago, Charles. He was four."

            
            "Sarah."

            
            "He needs to grow up now."

            
            "We are not discussing this."

            
            "Oh no, heaven forbid." Sarah snatched a towel from the counter; roughly, she began to wipe frosting from her fingers. "Heaven forbid we ever discuss anything in this house."

            
            Charles's hand closed around her forearm. Sarah dropped the towel.

            
            "Heaven forbid," Charles echoed. His hand tightened. Sarah looked away, toward the dining room, and he let go. She stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen, head still turned away. Charles opened the pantry door, pulled out the trash can, and carried it back to the counter where she had been working. "For the mess," he said quietly, and in three long strides, he crossed back to the garage door and was gone.

            
            Sarah sank down onto the countertop, massaging her arm. She looked at the door, then back to scraps of cake that dusted the kitchen. She stood, pulled the trash can up against the counter, and swept everything into the bag. Bending, teetering on the narrow heels of her boots, she scooped up the bigger chunks lying on the floor. Everything went into the garbage. She stepped up to the sink, pushed the faucet too hard, wiggled her fingers in the stream of water as it warmed.

            
            With quick strokes, she washed the glass she had used before. Sarah hummed, flat notes that plunked in counterpoint to the sound of water on stainless steel. Shaking it out, she carried it out of the kitchen, into the dining room. At the bar she scooped ice with her hands, slopped vodka over the side. Still humming, she picked up the bar towel and tossed it, unused, into the sink.