She woke on her fifty-seventh birthday, alone. That part she didn’t really mind. Solitude was a gift she’d given herself long ago. She’d practiced it for decades; escaping parties early with a well-rehearsed list of excuses, avoiding shopping centres, extending time between catch ups so long that it became awkward. With a head full of introspection and banal busyness, connections just seemed easier to control online, at the occasional dinner, or even within memories. Measured interactions. That’s what Ruth preferred. A sample here, a selection there.  

She’d always regretted overindulgence. Too many mornings waking, head throbbing and bloated with the noise and excess of it all. Days of too many eyes, too many voices, and the weight of all those wants. Often, even while enjoying the banter or easy affirmations, she’d be yearning for her first moment alone. Closing her front door on all those watermelon slice smiles, have-a-nice-day’s, peering eyes, press of skin and warm breath. Now, the perimeters drawn by the pandemic corralled her penchant for controlled distance into tight, socially acceptable pieces. Avoiding crowds and hugs was becoming the new normal. Finally, she was the new normal.  

The dermatologist appointment had been made months ago. When the receptionist had offered her that date over the phone, she’d hesitated a moment but then realised it was the perfect excuse. A day off work would mean missing the dutiful cake or sympathy lunch, or worse still, the possible absence of either. Now, as she drove down the highway, an inflatable balloon man waved blithely from a caryard. He dipped, swayed, and turned his black circle eyes towards another lane of traffic. Another fickle friend. Ruth sighed, took the north exit, and headed to the medical centre. 

Poring over her limbs, face, under her bra, and panty line with a magnifying glass, the shiny young clinician crinkled her eyes into smiling curves above her face mask.  

“Did you know we also offer Botox treatments? I mean, you’re, what…let me see.” 

And she paused to scan the computer screen for Ruth’s personal details. 

“Oh, my! It’s your birthday today. Happy birthday!” 

Ruth crinkled up an eye smile while cringing silently, “Thank you.” 

“Well, your skin is quite good for your age, but Botox treatments could give you a lift.” 

And there it was. At your age. You look good, for your age. Your blood pressure is good, for your age. Your IT skills are good, for your age. You are still almost visible, at your age. She declined the Botox but took the cryotherapy instead to burn off some suspicious looking spots on her shoulder.  

She’d get a call tonight from her son, who’d make an effort to sound like this phone call wasn’t prompted by his girlfriend. Sweet girl. Ruth knew she wasn’t unloved. She also knew she wasn’t entirely loveable. Rarely effusive, she knew how to feign disinterest in attention, accept a life in the background, and even married a man that never really saw her.  

Treating herself with coffee and a croissant at a local cafe, she tried to distract herself from the sting of burnt flesh. A pang of childishness or self-pity perhaps, made her suddenly wish the pastry were birthday cake. That it had a candle in it. That the people in the cafe weren’t strangers and would sing to her ‘Happy Birthday’ just like she remembered on her tenth birthday, so very long ago. 

A flash of a party scene, like an old film reel projecting onto the cafe wall, shimmered before her. There she was, forty-seven years ago, in the backyard beneath the Hills Hoist, garlanded with pink streamers and rose-coloured balloons strewn through its metal poles and wires. Folding card tables loaded with creamy puffs, musk sticks, hot homemade sausage rolls, and jugs of cordial. At the centre, reigned a proud, pink two-tier cake, a slender ballerina twirling atop it. There were even matching ballerina party bags and decorations. All just for her. The lovely old lady next door had begged Ruth’s mother to let her help.  

“Oh, let me plan it,” she’d begged, and Ruth’s overburdened mother didn’t argue. Maybe it was the party she would have liked for a daughter she’d never had. There were photos of the magnificent cake, Ruth in her pink cotton dress grinning her crooked toothed smile, but none of the neighbour who’d made it all happen. They’d moved away the next year, and Ruth never knew what happened to old Mrs. Sawyer. 

After the flush of such a celebration, Ruth had trained herself not to expect or hope for too much again. Her mother told her not to expect a party like that again.  

“Just cause some old lady has the time to spoil you, don’t start thinking we’ve got the time and money for that nonsense.” 

It must have been a mistake: all that attention, all that fuss, all at once embarrassing and thrilling. You couldn’t expect the roller coaster every day. She paid the cashier but was pretty sure there was no smile along with the ‘Have a nice day.’ So hard to tell in this masked world. 

She’d go home and check the mailbox. One of her sisters may even have sent a card. But it didn’t matter, not at her age. People noted her awkwardness at compliments, her blush at too much fuss, and respected what they believed was shyness. Calm and controlled, that’s how she moved through her days, and it had served Ruth well. A relieved divorcee enjoying the smallness, the quiet of routine. And she believed it too. Most of the time.