“Esmeralda, what are you going to do for your birthday?” Her father had grown more and more restless as the days ticked closer to Friday. It was already Wednesday and Mr. Comstock still did not have anything like a plan for the party.
“Dad, I don’t even want to do anything. It’s just another day.”
“Well, don’t you want to have a party?” Esmeralda’s father asked, “I already talked to your Aunt Kay. She said she can bring up your cousins and we can have a nice party. You can invite your friend Robert. We can have cake and the whole deal. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“Daddy, no. It doesn’t sound nice. Okay? You know I don’t like my cousins. They don’t want to come here anyway. If you’re going to have a birthday party, it should be with your friends.”
“Well then, what would you like to do?” Her father smiled. “Because you have to have a party. You’re turning thirteen. It’s a very important date.”
“Well, if I have to have a party, we can just have Robert sleep over.”
“Just Robert? You don’t want to invite any other kids from school?”
“Just Robert.”
“Well, honey, I love you, and if you want to have just us three at the party that’s fine,” Esmeralda’s father said. “But, I talked with Robert’s parents last week and they don’t seem to want him to spend the night at our house.”
“I know, Dad, Robert told me about it. He changed their minds.”
Esmeralda’s father shoved his hands into the pockets of his ugly brown housecoat. “How could he possibly do that?”
“I don’t know,” Esmeralda said. “He gave them a whole presentation. He had charts and graphs and everything.”
“Well, if it’s alright with Robert’s parents, and that’s what you want to do, then that’s fine.”
Esmeralda walked up to her father and took his hand. “But, Dad, I don’t want you to give me a Mommy Present. Just give me a Daddy Present. That’s enough.”
Esmeralda’s father paused for a moment and squeezed her hand. His eyes clouded over. “Alright, honey, if that’s what you want.”
For three years, Esmeralda’s father had been getting her two presents on her birthday. One was from him, and one, he said, was from Esmeralda’s mother. Esmeralda’s mother and father, ever since she was a baby, had gotten her two presents for her birthday: a Mommy Present and a Daddy Present. Esmeralda knew that some kids got any number of presents for their birthdays, but her family never had a lot of money. They weren’t poor; they weren’t rich either. Her parents always got her things that were small but meaningful.
Three and a half years before Esmeralda’s thirteenth birthday, her mother got very sick. The sickness was a word that, at the time, Esmeralda didn’t understand. Before then she hadn’t needed to know what “cancer” was. Now she knew: it was something that took people’s mothers away.
That night Esmeralda could hardly sleep for the anticipation of trying to play Mr. Chandrasekhar’s flute. Was it possible that anyone else could produce that very special, living music? She thought how horrible it would be if Stacy Keenan or someone was able to play the flute while she failed. It felt like a test of some kind. What if the flute had a sort of mind of its own, and it could tell who the deserving and undeserving were?