Lymber craft's Arc

Chapter 70 of 70

The cyst had a name now, and the week bent around the party instead of her body. Three years had passed since Violetta first sat in the gazebo with Jordie Daniels. Today she turned sixteen. Lymber stood at the kitchen window and counted the folding chairs in the yard. Two hundred people were coming. One year younger than Lymber had been when she carried Violetta. She pressed that number down and went to find her daughter. Violetta stood in front of the long mirror upstairs in a white dress. Her hair fell past her shoulders in loose waves. She turned when Lymber came in and asked if it looked okay. Lymber said it looked right. She fixed one strap and stepped back. Jordie was already downstairs helping Paul move the speaker. Three years of him at their table, at their door, in the back seat of the car. Lymber had watched it happen the way Polly once watched her. Jett came up the stairs in the black jacket he had picked out himself. He was thirteen and taller than Missy by a head. He asked where the extension cord was. Lymber told him the garage. Missy and Max ran past him in matching shoes, twelve years old and already arguing about the cake table. Lymber caught Missy by the arm and told her to walk. Missy walked three steps and then ran again. Max followed. By five the yard was full. Neighbors, cousins, kids from Violetta's class, people Lymber had not seen since the tower job started. Paul worked the grill. Jordie stayed close to Violetta at the drink table, one hand on her lower back. Lymber watched them from the deck and felt the old math move under her ribs. Sixteen. She had been seventeen. She looked away and refilled the ice. Someone tapped a glass. Paul called Violetta to the middle of the yard and handed her the microphone. She thanked everyone for coming. She thanked Jordie by name. Two hundred faces turned toward her the way two hundred faces had once turned toward Lymber at a gym floor. Lymber gripped the deck rail. Violetta cut the cake. Nothing bad happened. The music started again. At eleven the last car pulled away. Jett was asleep on the couch in his jacket. Max and Missy were fighting sleep at the kitchen counter. Paul started stacking chairs. Lymber found Violetta and Jordie sitting on the back step in the dark, close, not talking. Violetta had a small paper bag next to her foot. Lymber knew the shape of the box inside it before she saw it. She had bought one herself, three times, in that same drugstore. She went inside and shut the sliding door halfway. She stood at the sink with the water running and did not turn around. Ten minutes later Violetta came in holding the stick flat in her palm. Jordie stood behind her. Violetta said, Mom. Lymber turned off the tap. She looked at the two lines and then at her daughter's face, sixteen today, and she said, okay. We start here.