The Kids Made Me A Billionaire; The Cashback System

The Mother Who Never Baked

Grace's birthday cake was still warm.

Pink frosting was sliding off the side. Seven candles were half-melted. Gold had a pink nose because he tried to boop it. Leo was sitting like a good boy but his tail was wagging so hard it was knocking over chairs.

And downstairs, Sarah wanted to come up.

"Mommy?" Grace whispered, holding my hand tight. She was 7, but she remembered. She remembered Sarah leaving before she blew her candles last year.

Victoria, who still had flour on her black shirt, stood up. Her ice queen face was back, but it was different now. It was a mom face.

"No," she said quietly. "Not today. Not on her birthday."

But Grace shook her head. "It's okay, Mommy Victoria. I want to see if she brings a cake."

That broke me. My 7 year old daughter was measuring love in cakes.

I called John. "Let them up. But only Sarah. No lawyers. No Mark. And the police stays in lobby."

Two minutes later, the elevator dinged.

Sarah came out. She looked... small. No designer bag today. No new hair. She had cried. And she was holding a white box from the grocery store. The $20 kind with plastic frosting. The kind she bought last year.

She saw us. All of us. Me, Victoria, Emma, Lily, Tom, Ben, Grace, Gold, Leo, and Davis standing at the door in his janitor uniform holding his daughter's handmade doll gift.

She saw the homemade cake. Lopsided. Real frosting. Flour everywhere.

She looked at her store box and her hands started shaking.

"Grace... baby... happy birthday," she said, voice cracking. "Mommy brought you a cake..."

Grace didn't run to her. She stood next to me and Victoria.

"You didn't make it," Grace said. Not mean. Just... observing. Like a 7 year old judge.

Sarah: "Baby, mommy is not good at baking... I..."

"You didn't try," Grace said. "Daddy and Mommy Victoria tried 5 times. They burned 4. I smelled it. They stayed up all night. You... you bought."

Sarah fell to her knees. The grocery box fell. The plastic cake inside jiggled.

"I... I was wrong," Sarah cried. A real and ugly cry. "I thought money would make me happy. Mark said he was 100x. He said he was better than your daddy. But yesterday I saw... I saw on TV... the $30B birthday party... and your daddy punched a billionaire for you... and baked a cake..."

She looked at me. "I left you when you had $212. You have $30B now. And you are still in the kitchen at 3 AM baking. Mark has $0 now. He left me when Johnsons went broke for 7 days."

Victoria stepped forward. She didn't say anything mean. She just put a hand on Grace's shoulder.

Sarah crawled to Grace. "Baby, can mommy have a slice of your real cake? Just one slice?"

Grace looked up at me. At Victoria.

I knelt down. "Princess, it's your birthday. Your cake. Your choice."

Grace thought for 10 seconds. A 7-year-old thinking like a grown woman.

She picked up a small piece of our lopsided homemade cake and gave it to Sarah.

"You can have this. But you can't stay. Because Mommy Victoria is my mommy now. She makes cakes for my birthday and she loves me more than you do."

Sarah took the piece, crying, frosting on her fingers, and ate it standing in the doorway of the Presidential Suite she could never afford.

My phone buzzed.

[GRACE'S CHOICE: Forgiveness without Return]

[REWARD: Grace's Heart +100 - She is no longer waiting for her old mother]

[SARAH STATUS: 0x - System left her when she chose money over kids]

Sarah left, holding her grocery box, walking past the police who were still holding Johnson Sr. in handcuffs in the lobby.

Johnson Sr. saw her and laughed, even with a bloody nose.

"Another 0x joins the club, Sarah? Told you 100x women can't survive without a man."

Sarah didn't answer. She walked out onto the street where Davis used to sit, where 12 street dogs now lived because Gold adopted them.

Davis, the janitor, walked over to her and said quietly: "Ma'am, the kitchen is hiring dishwashers. $2,000 a month. If you want to learn to bake..."

Sarah looked at him, at his Gold Membership card now pinned to his janitor uniform like a badge of honor, and stood up and left.

Her plan was already working. She smiled as she took out her phone and made a call.

She hadn't come to plead for forgiveness. She had other motives in mind.

TO BE CONTINUED...