I had spent all afternoon helping her father set up chairs and haul coolers full of ice. My shirt stuck to my back. My hands smelled like lighter fluid and hickory smoke. Rebecca had spent the day inside with her mother and sister, getting dressed, touching up lipstick, and making sure every detail looked expensive enough to impress people who were already impressed by anything with a Tucker name on it.
By the time the cake came out, everyone had a drink in hand and a story to tell. Her mother stood beaming in the middle of the yard, one hand on her pearls, the other on her husband’s arm. Rebecca stepped beside her in a green dress that fit like it had been sewn onto her body. Beautiful. Perfect. Dangerous. She tapped a spoon against her glass.
“Can I have everyone’s attention?”
Conversations dimmed. Forks settled onto plates. A baby somewhere near the fence stopped fussing.
Rebecca smiled that polished smile of hers, the one that never quite reached her eyes. “I just want to say how proud I am of my mother,” she said. “Seventy years old, and still somehow the strongest person in this family.”
People nodded. A few murmured agreement.
