I pulled up to my own ranch that afternoon and found somebody else’s birthday party in my field.
Twenty-seven cars were parked on my grass. A DJ booth with speakers the size of refrigerators faced my tree line. A bright bouncy castle sat in the center of the meadow like an inflatable insult. And on top of my cedar picnic table, the one I had built with my own hands eighteen summers earlier, rested a four-tier white birthday cake with pink sugar flowers and tall candles waiting to be lit.
For a second I just sat there with both hands on the wheel.
