Either way, it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

“Sure, kiddo,” I say as I tousle his hair. “I’ll get something from him next time I see him.”

“Yes!” Glenn yells and gives a fist pump in the air. “Everyone at school will die when they see it.”

“You’ll be the talk of the class,” Mom says, her eyes warm and grateful as she watches the exuberance on Glenn’s face. Then she lifts her gaze to mine and her expression to me says, Thank you, baby, for making Glenn happy. He deserves it.

I can feel tears prickle at my eyes so I blink rapidly, and say, “Okay, who is ready for some lasagna?”

“I’m ready for my birthday cake,” Glenn says with a grin.

Pushing the spatula into the pan, I lift out a slice and place it on Glenn’s plate. “Lasagna first, then cake,” I tell him.

“Then presents?” he asks hopefully.

“We’ll discuss it if you eat all of your dinner,” Mom says.

Glenn picks up his fork and dives in before I even get the second slice out of the pan. I shake my head with a smile on my face, pulling another piece out.

“Here you go, Jim-Dad,” I say affectionately as I place the cheesy pile on his plate.

“Thanks, baby. Looks great,” he says.

My stepdad is a real-life, bona fide angel. He took my mom and me in when I was just nine years old. We had been living at a women’s shelter for about five months, and while we were safe, warm and had food in our stomachs, we were lonely.

My mom, Penny, met Jim Murdock when he came into the drugstore where she worked the front register. The story has been changed and manipulated so many times over the years, I’m not sure really what went down, but they both claim it was love at first sight. Of course, my mom was wary, having come out of a violent relationship with my father, but it didn’t take long for Mom to fall under Jim’s special brand of magic, and it didn’t take long for me to warm up to him either.

Within a year, Mom had married Jim, and within another six months, he had become Jim-Dad to me. Another year after that my baby brother had been born, and my life was absolutely perfect.

Considering we came from a pretty hellish life prior to that, it didn’t take much to give Mom and me security. But Jim’s kind words and soft touch, the roof over our heads and the knowledge that we would never suffer again gave Mom and me the best existence we could have ever hoped for.

“Honey, I love what you’ve done with your kitchen,” Mom says as she looks at the curtains I hung last weekend. They were on sale at Wal-Mart, and while they were an expenditure I really shouldn’t have made, I couldn’t resist the cheerful pattern of yellow lemons that I knew would be perfect over the sink window. I had just painted the kitchen a similar color of yellow and did the dingy oak cabinets in a glossy white with new hardware I found on sale. I bought this house just shy of four months ago for practically a song and a dance. It’s not in the greatest section of town, it was in foreclosure—which is why I got it so cheap—and it needs a hell of a lot of work.

But it’s mine.

“Thanks, Mom. I think the house is coming along great.” I scoop out some lasagna for her and then put a piece on my plate, sitting down to enjoy our birthday dinner for Glenn.

“Your bathroom sink still working okay?” Jim asks.

“Yup. It’s proof positive that if you ever quit your day job, you have a career in plumbing,” I tell him with a snicker.

I’m hoping one day I’ll be done with all of the “fix-ups” for this place. So far, it’s coming along well, and luckily Jim-Dad has been able to help me with the more complex repairs. But I single-handedly—and with great love—sanded down and refinished the old hardwood floors that run throughout the house. That took me nearly three weeks to do on my own, but it was worth saving the cost and it was a major accomplishment that I’m proud of.

Jim takes a huge bite of lasagna and chews with a grin on his face. With a brief glance, I take in his kind eyes, tanned face and scruffy beard. He’s a bear of a man, standing over six feet tall and built almost as wide. Jim is an auto mechanic by trade, working at one of the Ford dealerships for the past eighteen years. While cars are his specialty, he’s one of those dads who can just fix anything.

We settle into the Murdock family tradition of cracking jokes while we eat dinner, snorting and laughing in between bites of lasagna and garlic bread. While my last name is Price, because my birth father still owns that part of me, I consider myself Jim’s daughter and thus a Murdock.

When we’re done, I bring out Glenn’s birthday cake. It’s tradition in our family that the birthday honoree gets their favorite dinner cooked, and their favorite dessert. It doesn’t have to be a cake, but in Glenn’s case it was.

Homemade red velvet cake with buttercream frosting.

His eyes go wide when he sees the monstrosity that I’ve made. It’s so tall that it actually tilts to the left a little, slightly resembling the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I light the eleven candles and then we all sing a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” while Glenn looks around at each of us with a toothy smile on his face. By the time the last notes of the song die out, we’re all wearing matching grins.

Glenn closes his eyes to make his wish, then gives a gusty blow to the candles, moving his head back and forth to give them all equal airtime. He blows them out like a champ, all except the one trick candle I had placed in the middle. We all laugh as he repeatedly puffs at it, watching it spark back to life time and time again.