The black SUV rolled through the gates of Silverbrook Estate long after sunset, its headlights sweeping across trimmed hedges and marble fountains that glimmered in the dark. Inside the vehicle, Oliver Bennett loosened his collar and rubbed his eyes, feeling the weight of another week of negotiations and flights press against his bones. He had just returned from Chicago where meetings stretched into nights and nights stretched into dawn. All he wanted was silence, a shower, and a bed that did not move beneath airplane turbulence.
He did not expect laughter.
As he stepped onto the veranda, the scent of grass and sugar reached him. On the lawn stood a small wooden table draped with a red checkered cloth. A homemade cake leaned slightly to one side, candles burning bravely in the evening breeze. Four little boys in matching blue shirts circled the table, giggling and bumping shoulders, their faces sticky with frosting. In the center of it all stood a woman in a faded apron, clapping softly to keep rhythm as she sang a birthday song in a gentle voice.