My Mother's Laugh

”... happy birthday mom!....”
”...yea, I fidty two now…”
.
.
.
?
Then she started laughing, in a laugh that was only hers. Brother and I stood there staring in the wide eyed way we always did when she’d do this laugh and then like stereo, we look at dad. I was older than brother so I had the maturity to believe that perhaps dad might start laughing too any second now, but the look on his face was as clearly confused as ours. For the first time, I saw our faces on him and I remembered that. Like he just met my mother for the first time, ever… I could see from the corner of my eye that brother was about to eat into the cake as he simply didn’t care about our current family confusion any more…he was young.
Mom was still laughing.

It’s not a ‘soft and gentle laugh’ yet it’s not mean or hostile… it’s one of those
”... I’ve got all of you fooled and I’m not lettin’ ya in on it…” kind of laughs. We knew just to let it be and I wasn’t so old that the damn cake wasn’t looking more interesting to me right then too.

”...what do you mean?...” dad says in a very soft voice.
”...Ha! I always older then you…, I just dont tell you…” :))

He smiled and shook his head like it was slightly amusing…
”...I mo then 10 year older….”
was the last thing I heard before brother had pitchforked the cake and it was time to dig in, candles or not.