I set my napkin down. I looked at Patricia.

“No problem at all,” I said. “I’ll bring mine out after yours.”

Her smile flickered.

I think she had expected me to protest, to go pink and to leave the table.

But that never happened.

“Oh, sweetheart, you don’t have to,” she said, recovering. “One cake is plenty. Nobody expects two.”

“I’d like to,” I told her.

She studied my face for a moment. Then she picked up the knife.

“Well, if you insist.”

She sliced her cake with theatrical flourishes, angling the glossy chocolate ganache so everyone could admire it.

She served the largest slice to Mark first, then Harold, then made a slow lap of the table, handing plates to relatives who cooed appreciatively.

“Beaumont’s,” her sister sighed. “You spoil us, Patricia.”

“Well, someone has to.”

I stood and gathered a few empty dinner plates, moving toward the kitchen.

Patricia caught my eye across the counter as I passed.

She mouthed two words at me, her lips shaping them slowly so I couldn’t miss it.

“Good sport.”

She followed it with a small pitying smile, the kind you give a child who tried very hard and lost anyway.

I turned toward the fridge, my hand resting on the handle.

Inside, on the second shelf, waited a plain white box she had never seen coming.

I was about to pull the door open when Patricia cleared her throat behind me.

“Before we all indulge,” she said, setting down her knife with a flourish and lifting her wine glass, “I have to tell the story. You know the one.”

A few relatives groaned playfully. They knew.

“Rosalind’s honey walnut cake,” Patricia sighed. “My mother’s masterpiece. Buried with her, God rest her soul.”

She looked directly at me and smiled.

“I’ve tried, oh, I’ve tried. Twenty years and I still can’t crack it. And this one here.”

She waved her fork toward me.

“Bless her heart, she wouldn’t know the first thing about walnuts. Some things you’re born into. Some things you’re not.”

The laughter came easy for them.

I felt the sting settle exactly where she wanted it. Fifteen years of the same joke, told a little sharper each time, and every year I laughed along like a good sport.

My hand hovered over the fridge handle.

For one long second, I thought about leaving my cake right where it sat. Letting her have the night. Keeping the peace, like I’d done a hundred times before.

I glanced at Mark. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Then I glanced at Harold.

He was watching me. Not smiling, not urging. Just watching, the way a man watches to see what someone will choose.

I remembered every holiday I’d swallowed. Every Christmas I’d cleared plates while she held court. Every anniversary I’d bitten the inside of my cheek.

I straightened my shoulders.

“Actually, Patricia,” I said, “I’d love for everyone to try mine now.”

Her smile flickered.

“Oh sweetheart, no need. We’re all so full.”

“I insist.”

I walked into the kitchen. My hands were steady, which surprised me more than anything.

From the top shelf of the pantry, I pulled down Rosalind’s old glass cake stand. The one Patricia had handed over to Mark years ago with a dismissive wave, saying it would never hold anything in our house worth showing off.

I lifted the cake from its plain white box. Three layers. Golden honey glaze pooling at the edges. Candied walnut halves fanned across the top, the exact way Rosalind used to arrange them, according to the little sketch on the back of her recipe card.

I carried it out on the glass stand.

Patricia turned toward me with her arms folded and her practiced pity ready.

Then her eyes landed on the stand.

They flicked up to the cake.

The color left her face like someone had pulled a plug.