What We Give to Our Kids (part 2)
a short story by Kyle W. Davis
You are reading part 2 of the short story “What We Give to Our Kids.” Go here to read part 1.
Eight Years Ago
No more keeping the secret—no, the surprise. Her daily reminder. With the last glossy red streamer tacked in place, she folded the stepladder and admired her work. Race car decorations hung from the ceiling, adorned the napkins, plates, and party favors. A five-foot-tall, inclined racetrack with two lanes ran the length of the living room and next to it boxes of DIY race car sets sat stacked.
Chase burst through the front door, his soccer shorts and jersey streaked spring grass green, his cleats held dark dirt clods. He asked to see his cake, to which she answered with a firm no. She stepped outside.
Mason slung a bag of soccer balls and folding goals over his shoulders and trudged to the garage. As he shrugged off the bag, he told her of Chase’s bullying and petty play—goading teammates, grabbing opponents’ jerseys, and stepping on their shoelaces. But he was good at strategy. Celeste only nodded. Didn’t professional players do similar stuff to get the best from their team and into another player’s head? Smart. Cunning.
Mason stretched his back. “Everything ready for the party? And Reveal? He’s not gonna know that Serbian tennis pro. No one is.”
“Think if we’d gotten that blood gene.”
He laughed. “Right.”
They had followed advice for Enriched Children. Tell your child at ten, the thinking went. The child was old enough to understand the information, but young enough to incorporate it into their still-developing sense of self. The Reveal Birthday Party had come about as the only way to tell one’s child and their network.
Three months ago, they attended their first Reveal party. The party started like any other, with games, treats, and shrieks. But when the cake was presented, bearing the telltale double-helix, everyone went silent. The boy’s parents started up the Happy Birthday song and he blew out the candles then looked up, bewildered. The father said, Check the driveway. The kids bolted, then screamed.