The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

by Aimee Bender

The world had matched what he’d dreamed up, and he settled himself inside what they’d made. He was cheerful enough when he came home from work but he didn’t really know what to do with little kids so he never taught us how to ride a bike, or wear a mitt, and our changes in height remained unmarked on the door frames, so we grew tall on our own without proof.

There was something rude and bruising about it, like I was mad at him and he was mad at me and we were having a fight with our lips, but somehow it all still felt pretty good.

That she might not actually know us seemed the humblest thing a mother could admit.