Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 31 of 70

A week after the puppy came home, the wedding list moved off the counter and into Lymber's lap. She sat on the couch with Jett asleep on her chest and Violetta on the rug with the pup. Paul stood at the sink washing bottles. Lymber said, two weeks. He said, two weeks. She said, we haven't picked a place. Paul turned the tap off. He dried his hands on the towel. He said, the gazebo. Lymber looked up. He said, where I asked you. She waited for him to say more. He didn't. She called Polly first, the way her mother had told her to. Polly picked up on the second ring. Lymber said, we're doing it at the gazebo in the park. Two weeks from Saturday. Polly was quiet a beat. Then she said, small then. Lymber said, small. Polly said, chairs on the grass and a cake I can bake. Lymber said, yes. Polly said, I'll call the woman who does the license and tell her Wednesday. Then she hung up. The next day Lymber drove out to the park with Violetta buckled in and Jett in the car seat behind her. Paul met them there on his lunch break. The gazebo stood at the top of the little rise the way it had the night he asked. The paint was chipped along one rail. A wasp nest hung under the far eave. Lymber counted steps from the road to the front rail. She counted twelve. She said, we can fit twenty chairs on the grass. Paul said, easy. Violetta ran up the ramp in her pink dress and put both hands on the rail and yelled, mine. Lymber laughed for the first time all week. They drove to the courthouse Wednesday and signed the license. Polly met them there with a pen of her own and witnessed the line. Lymber wrote her name in full. Paul wrote his. The clerk stamped the paper and slid it back. Polly folded it and put it in her purse. She said, I'll hold this. You'll lose it. Lymber didn't argue. Outside on the steps Polly said, I want the guest list by Friday. I told you I wouldn't run this one. I lied a little. Paul almost smiled. That night Lymber sat at the kitchen table and wrote names on a legal pad. Paul's parents. Polly. Two cousins. A friend from the clinic. Nineteen in all. She stopped at nineteen and set the pen down. Jett cried in the bassinet by the window. Violetta was asleep on the rug with the pup under her arm. Lymber looked at the list and felt the date close in. Nine days now. The venue was set. The paper was signed. All that was left was the dress, and she did not yet know how she would fit into one.