Page 102 of Misfortune and Mr. Right

“Sounds good,” I say.

I’m ready to drive to the party store and rent a bounce house if it will keep that sad expression off Cassidy’s face for the rest of the night.

I glance over at Olivia for her approval.

“Sure. We can throw him a party,” Olivia tells Cassidy. “After you eat your pizza and wash up from dinner.”

We pull our pizzas from the oven and sit around Olivia’s dining table to eat our creations. Cassidy fills the mealtime with stories about her friends at school.

After dinner, I wash the dishes while Olivia pulls out what she calls The Birthday Box. It has candles and a H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y streamer. She passes out cone-shaped birthday hats, which we each put on. Cassidy tries to put one on Rhett. He’s a good dog, but even he has his limits.

“What’s this, Aunt Olivia?” Cassidy holds up a fortune cookie that was buried in the birthday box.

She pulls out another and then another.

“You have Chinese cookies in here. Just like when we get Chinese food!”

Olivia and I exchange a look. It’s obvious she didn’t put those cookies there. Unless she did after a party where there was Chinese food involved.

“Here!” Cassidy says, handing me a cookie. “Open it.”

She hands another to Olivia. “This one’s for you. And this one”—she holds the third cookie up between pinched fingers—“is mine.”

I tear open my wrapper. “I’m getting good at this,” I say to Olivia.

“Practice makes perfect,” she says, tearing into hers.

“You go first,” Cassidy orders me.

“Okay. Mine says,When someone wins your heart, don’t let her go.”

Cassidy’s face scrunches up. Olivia smiles at me. I smile back.

“Okay, Aunt Olivia. You go,” Cassidy says in her commanding five-year-old voice.

Olivia cracks her cookie and reads, “Look closer—the person who drives you crazy might also drive you wild.” Olivia looks at me and raises her eyebrows. “I mean, it’s not wrong.”

Cassidy tears into her wrapper and cracks the cookie. She pops half into her mouth and holds the strip of paper out to Olivia.

“You can sound it out,” Olivia says.

“Okay,” Cassidy says, holding the paper and reading. “It says, You br … br … eye … I don’t know that word.”

Olivia stands behind Cassidy. “You bring …”

Cassidy says, “I know this one.Joy. It says,You bring joy.”

Olivia finishes the sentence for Cassidy. “It says,You bring joy wherever…”

Cassidy says, “... you go! You bring joy wherever you go!”

Olivia smiles down at her niece. “That’s true.”

“Are fortune cookies true?” Cassidy asks.

“They can be like the truth,” Olivia concedes. “But they don’t make things true. They aren’t magic.”

“I don’t know about that,” I say softly.

---