Chapter 1.
The day I turned 12, I was certain
it'd be my favorite birthday yet.
But then, I got the letter.
I just had my dream birthday
party at Ari's cakes.
Mom's friend Ariana owns
the bakery in Beacon Hill,
my favorite neighborhood in all of Boston.
It had cute brick buildings and
townhouses with cobblestone streets.
There was a deli with baskets
of fresh fruit for sale outside,
a chocolate shop, a coffee shop,
and a ton of fancy restaurants.
And then there was Ari's cakes,
with its pretty pale blue awning and
a wooden sign above it with the store's
name written in white script.
Her front window always had
lots of cupcakes on display,
along with fresh flowers.
You could smell the sugar
before you walked in.
Even though it was pouring rain outside,
I felt like the luckiest girl.
I'd been in a professional
kitchen with my best friends,
Jasmine and Maya, as we baked and
decorated chocolate fudge cupcakes.
When my parents and I got home, dad pulled
his rain jacket hood onto his head and
rushed inside with the box
of leftover cupcakes.
Mom using an umbrella,
carried my gift bags.
I hurried behind them and on my way in,
grabbed the mail from the mailbox
next to our front door.
While I kicked off my sneakers in our
foyer, I flipped through the envelopes
checking to see if my great
aunt's birthday card arrived.
She usually included money and
I was dying to add an egg
separator to my baking supplies.
There was a catalog and
some junk mail from credit card companies.
And then I spotted a plain
white envelope with my name,
Zoe Washington, and my address
hand written in neat blue print.
I glanced at the return address and froze.
Massachusetts State Penitentiary
was typed on the upper left corner
across from a waving American flag stamp.
The name Marcus Johnson was written
in that same blue handwriting
above the prison's name.
It was a letter from my convict father,
a man I'd never heard from before.
I couldn't believe it.
Just like that,
my birthday didn't matter anymore.
The envelope slipped from my
fingers landing on the floor.
My dog, Butternut, ran over and
started licking it.
But I snatched it up and dropped it
onto the table next to the front door.
Why would Marcus write to me?
Why now?
I only owned one picture of him,
which grandma had given me
since mom would never approve.
It was one of mom's pictures that
grandma had saved from when mom and
Marcus were high school sweethearts.
I'd hidden the picture between
the pages of one of my journals.
In it,
Marcus was at a Boston Celtics game,
wearing a team sweatshirt and
a huge smile.
My smile looked like his, which was weird.
Someone I never met had
the exact same smile as me.
And his brown skin matched mine.
Mom's skin was a little lighter.
Now, Marcus was sitting in a prison cell.
Probably wearing an orange jumpsuit,
that's how I imagined people in prison.
I bet he didn't smile much there.
I picked up the envelope and
rubbed my thumb across the seal, but
all of a sudden my fingers stopped
working and I froze in place.
I wanted to read it, but
I was also terrified of what it might say.
He'd committed a terrible crime.
What if he'd written something scary?
It was only a piece of paper,
but the feeling wouldn't go away.
I took a deep breath and
started to open the envelope again, but
then I heard mom come down the stairs.
I knew it was mom and
not my stepdad Paul, because she was
humming a song that she did a lot,
especially in front of the bathroom
mirror when she was putting on make up.
She had a pretty good voice, but
she always said it was because
of the bathroom acoustics.
That was wrong because my stepdad
sometimes sang in the shower and
the acoustics didn't stop him from
sounding like a dying coyote.
I quickly tucked the letter into the
pocket on the inside of my rain jacket.
It wouldn't be a good idea to show mom.
I was pretty sure she'd take it
away without letting me read it.
I hoped she couldn't hear how
hard my heart was beating.
I put the gift bags in your room,
she said.
Thanks, did you have fun today?
She asked.
Your cupcakes came out so pretty.
It was amazing, I told mum.
But now I couldn't focus on how amazing it
was not with Marcus's letter taking up so
much space in my brain.
This today's mail?
Mom stared at the foyer table
where I'd left the rest of it.
Yep, I grabbed it from the mailbox.
Thanks.
But then her eyebrows
scrunched together and
her shoulders did what they
did when she was stressed.
They lifted up toward her ears.
She smiled at me, but it was a forced
smile, like she wasn't actually happy.
She picked up the pile of mail, and
as she flipped through it, her shoulders
slowly returned to their normal position.
I thought Auntie Lillian's card
might have come but I didn't see it.
I swallowed hard thinking of
the letter that had come.
I wondered if I should tell mom about it,
but what if it made her mad or upset?
She didn't like to talk about Marcus.
Mom smiled at me for real.
It'll come.
Anyway, there's one more
birthday surprise for you.
We're going to order Hawaiianish pizza for
dinner.
I forced myself to smile.
Hawaiianish was the name I'd
given my favorite pizza combo,
pineapple and pepperoni instead of ham.
Since my mom and
stepdad thought it was gross, we usually
only got those toppings on half a pie.
Sounds great.
I cleared my throat.
I'm gonna go to my room and
put my gifts away.
It was a total lie, but
that's not what mom noticed.
You're not gonna take your jacket off?
She asked.
Marcus's envelope was still in
my pocket right over my heart,
which was beating fast.
I'll take it off in my room, I walked
away before mom could say anything else.
What could Marcus have to say to me?
I had to know.
Chapter 2.
I shut my bedroom door,
and opened the envelope.
The paper inside was
a piece of loose-leaf,
like what mom would buy to
put into my school binders.
The words filling the page were
written in the same blue handwriting,
from the front of the envelope.
Except the print wasn't as neat.
I stood in the middle of my bedroom and
read the letter from start to finish,
and then I read it again.
Everything was quiet except for
my heartbeat echoing in my ear drums.
To my little tomato, happy birthday,
I can't believe you're 12 years old.
Wow, do I sound like a broken record when
I say that you're growing up so fast?
Do you even know what a broken record is?
Everybody used to listen to
CDs when I was growing up.
But my dad, your grandpa kept a record
player in the corner of the living room.
He always says that music sounds better,
coming from a record player.
He might be right.
His favorite singer is Stevie Wonder.
Have you ever heard any of his songs?
He has a pretty great voice.
There's this one song called,
Isn't She Lovely?
You should look it up sometime.
Stevie's saying exactly how I
feel about you, my baby girl.
Well, you're not a baby anymore,
but I know you've got to be
pretty lovely at this age.
I wish I could give you a hug and
see your smiling face on your big day.
I'm sorry,
I can't be there to celebrate with you.
I know your mom is doing
something special.
She was always good at knowing how to
celebrate birthdays when we were together.
Even if you never reply to these letters,
I'll keep writing them.
Though I hope you'll
write me back one day.
In the meantime, I want you to know
that I think about you every day.
Love daddy.
All I could do was stand there
staring at the paper in my hands.
I was like The Tin Man in the Wizard
of Oz when he needed to be oiled.
My arms and legs felt stiff,
like they'd weigh a million
pounds if I tried to move them.
Why did Marcus sound so nice?
Mom always made it seem
like he was a bad person,
he didn't seem like he
was writing from prison.
I wasn't sure how someone in
prison would sound exactly, but
I guessed they wouldn't be so smart.
He seemed normal.
He liked music like any other dad.
Like my stepdad who was into classical and
jazz music.
I'd heard of Stevie Wonder, and
I thought I knew a couple of his songs.
I'd look up Isn't She Lovely later.
I read the letter again.
Why had he called me little tomato?
It was kind of weird.
I liked tomatoes, especially the little
ones, but I didn't wanna be called one.
What did Marcus mean when
he wrote these letters?
This was the first one
I'd ever gotten from him.
It didn't make any sense,
none of this did.
I stared at my striped rug as
a million thoughts swirled around my
head like cake batter in a mixer.
Should I write him back?
What will happen if I do?
I had no idea Marcus thought about me.
But what if he was pretending to be nice
to me because he wanted something from me?
What though?
Maybe I should throw the letter away.
There was a knock on my bedroom door,
which made me jump two feet and
almost dropped the letter.
I collect the loose leaf paper
in my now sweating hands.
Hey, Zoe.
It was mom.
I tensed up.
One second.
I stuffed the letter back
into the envelope and
tucked it underneath my purple comforter.
I remembered I was still
wearing my jacket.
So I took it off and
threw it over the back of my desk chair.
Then I cracked my bedroom door open.
Trevor's here, mom said.
Trevor, what's he doing here?
As if she could hear my thoughts mom said,
he wants to give you his birthday
present since he wasn't at your party.
There was a reason for
that, he wasn't invited.
Can you tell him I'm busy?
I whispered.
Mom's glare made it clear she
was not about to do that.
Please, it's my birthday and
he's not my friend anymore.
Not after he made our friendship
out to be a total joke.
Mom's expression softened a little.
When are you going to
tell me what happened?
I shook my head.
No way was I telling her anything.
She'd probably force me to forgive Trevor.
And that was not going to happen.
As a brand new 12 year old, mom said,
you're old enough to understand
how rude it'll be if you don't come out
and thank him for the gift in person.
She forced my door open wider.
Come on.
All I wanted to do was read
Marcus' letter again and
figure out what it all meant and
what I should do next.
But first I had to deal
with my ex-best friend.
