To Build a Home

Epilogue

Approximately 8 months later:

"Blow out the candles and make a wish already!" Paul shouted through his cupped hands, making it sound somewhat like a message from a loudspeaker overhead. He looked around innocently as though searching for the source of the mystical voice. "Wow, who said that? You had better listen, Mikey. Sounds serious," he said in his normal voice.

"Paul Specter, you leave him alone and let him blow out the candles in his own good time!"

Mike smiled as he listened to Donna and Paul bicker behind him. "I'm just trying to think of a really good wish!" He exclaimed defensively.

"Well, sometime before your sixteenth birthday would be nice," Paul grumbled half-heartedly behind him.

"Mike can blow out the candles whenever he wants to, Paul," Harvey said mildly, smacking his brother upside the back of the head and elbowing his way through the small crowd surrounding Mike. He came to stand next to his now-fifteen-year-old ward, bearing plates and silverware for the cake. "Besides, I don't even like ice cream cake. If we leave the candles in for long enough, it'll melt and then we'll have to buy an actual cake. So take your time, Mike."

"I would have to disagree with you, Harvey, dear," Grammy decided to add her two cents in. "Henry and I would like to make it back to Florida before the first snowfall, please, Michael."

"Grammy! It's only October 7th!" Mike pointed out with a roll of his eyes. "You were all singing 'Happy Birthday' together peacefully a minute ago; why is everyone arguing now?"

"Because we want less talking and more blowing out candles!" Paul shouted helpfully, letting out a strangled yelp when Donna's dangerously high heels somehow wound up treading on his foot.

"Well, maybe if everyone would be quiet then I'd be able to make a wish," Mike said, frowning pointedly in Paul's direction. He closed his eyes, determined to think of a really good one.

He realized that he hadn't had a cake or made a wish last year and he smiled nostalgically as he remembered his fourteenth birthday, when Grammy had fallen and he'd been so sure that it was going to be an awful year. After all, it certainly hadn't started out well, and at the time of Grammy's accident he had felt more alone than ever. But as to how it had turned out...well, now he really couldn't imagine a better ending to what turned out to be an incredible year. He felt so fortunate that almost everyone important in his life had been able to make it to his fifteenth birthday celebration—Grammy, Henry Morris, Paul, Donna, Rachel, and Harold— they had all shown up to his and Harvey's apartment that evening, intent on having a good time.

Henry Morris and Grammy (who was now Edith Morris) arrived first out of the guests, bearing gifts and Mike's favorite type of ice cream cake. They had spent the last few months in New York and now that the weather was starting to get cooler, they were planning on leaving the coming weekend to go to Florida, where they would be spending the rest of the fall, the winter, and the spring. Mike was sad to see them go, but watching how happy Grammy had been the past few months during her marriage to Henry Morris had reaffirmed Mike's belief that Florida was the right place for her to be right now. He had done an internship at Pearson Hardman over the summer, which meant that it had made more sense for him to crash in his room at Harvey's some nights, but he had tried to spend as much time with Grammy and Henry Morris as possible. It had been both strange and wonderful, having two homes where he was always warmly welcomed, but now he was excited to be back to living with Harvey full-time.

Rachel and Harold had shown up next. The two of them had decorated his locker in a most garish fashion that morning, much to Mike's unfailing embarrassment and secret delight. He had arrived at school that afternoon and found Harold with his hair sticking straight up from static as a result Harold from blowing up the excessive amount of balloons and cramming them into Mike's locker. Rachel had greeted him with a container full of Oreo balls, and Mike had promptly eaten 7 of them and then almost vomited on his chemistry teacher's desk, but it had been worth it.