Red Velvet Cake

sit back and flashback.

~ chapter one :: “ sitback and flashback. . . ”

What had started off as a spur-of-the-moment experiment quickly turned into an annual tradition.

I remember the first time I begged you to stay up late. It didn’t take long for me to find you in the house; experience had me immediately heading straight towards the olive-green recliner chair in the living room—mom and I had pooled together our money to buy you the thing just in time for New Year’s; Christmas had come and gone far too fast—and there you sat, all stiff and formal-like, as if you were about to accept an award. You held the newspaper up to eye-length with strong, calloused hands, both of which gripped either side of the thin, lithe, off-white surface so much that the obituaries and comics were crinkled out of sight.

I remember skipping up to you, my bare feet sliding against the wooden floorboards before stopping simultaneously within an arm-reach of your left leg. I had plastered on a large grin—similar to the one from that purple cat in my storybooks—before beginning to poke and prod at the worn denim material that covered your leg. I giggled as you grunted from behind the paper, the top of your head just barely tilting to the side before resuming its straight-edge robotic position; perfectly adjacent to the transparent words on the paper that currently kept me from seeing your face. I remember thinking that you had clearly acknowledged me for that brief second, but wrongly assumed that I just wanted to play cowboy or dolls, like every other time.

But not this time. I called your name, still tugtugtugging on your jeans and now beginning to hop up and down out of pure excitement. I had been old enough to realize that there was a highly likely chance that you would deny my request, but young enough not to care. I continued an endless chant of ‘Daddy’ until my mouth went dry and my arm cramped up out of exhaustion. Even then, though, I just took a super-duper deep breath of air and started all over again.

By that point you were just ignoring me on purpose now; I could tell because nobody could possibly read through every single article as fast as you had—you kept flipping the page every two seconds in sync with my yelling of your name. The few minutes consisted of Flip, “Daddy Daddy!” Flip, “Daddy Daddy!” and maybe, maybe we would’ve kept going had you not decided to end it after fifteen rounds of us bantering back and forth.

 [And looking back on it now, I absolutely cannot believe I had considered the number to be of little importance. If only I’d known.]

I remember you setting the newspaper down in your lap, not bothering to fold it before flashing me a tiny smirk, the corners of your lips disappearing into your silly moustache—Who would’ve thought that Mom would’ve finally convinced you to shave it only a year later?—as you uttered my name, chuckling haughtily as I mocked your deep, throaty voice, replacing my name with your own.

“Tomorrow’s my burfday!” I remember I had a lisp; the Tooth Fairy had taken it upon herself to seize possession of my two front teeth just a few days prior, “Can I thay up late tonight? It not even that late, I thwear! One twenty-fwee p-m, Daddy! That it! Tho I can really turn six fo real!”

 I’ve always told myself that it was my widened eyes that finally had you giving in, because it had worked on you for every year after that until I stopped asking for your permission altogether; that is, the year of my fourteenth birthday.

And I remember that birthday the most above all others; because it occurred more than once.