Bend by Kivrin Wilson

Author:Kivrin Wilson [Wilson, Kivrin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-04-05T23:00:00+00:00

My parents have gone all out with this party. It’s in the largest event space at the country club, a room with white-cloth-draped tables and chairs, spaced out around a smooth, gleaming dance floor. There’s a small stage where, off to the side, the DJ is doing his thing, playing mellow music just loud enough to be heard above the hum of chatter from the guests and the clink of silverware on enameled plates.

The best part, though, is the decor. The tables, chandeliers, buffet, and tall floor vases in the corners are adorned with flowers, all of them lilies in a multitude of colors. It’s a feast for the eyes, and when I first stepped into the room, arm in arm with my grandmother, I took one look at it all and then happily observed how she covered her mouth, her eyes glistening.

I’m sitting between her and Jay at a table with my parents and my brother, and we’re eating cake—a tender, white confection with a light and refreshing strawberry filling and buttercream frosting that’s fluffy and not too sweet. It’s the perfect ending to a buffet dinner that was either amazingly delicious or I was just too hungry to tell the difference.

Grandma’s looking fabulous tonight in her dove-gray, calf-length dress with delicate lace sleeves. Her gray-and-still-thick hair is styled as she always does it, the layered and tousled bob softly framing her lightly made-up face. And in the V of her dress, she’s pinned the brooch my grandfather gave her for their twenty-fifth anniversary: an emerald-green pin in the shape of a lily, gleaming with the topaz in the middle and the diamond-studded leaves. I spent a lot of time as a kid admiring and playing with that piece of jewelry, under Grandma’s close supervision.

She’s appeared radiant and happy all night, but never more so than when the lights dimmed and a server rolled out the white, four-tiered, square cake decorated in an intricate, swirly pattern with a row of pink lilies cascading down one side of it, the whole thing being lit up by eighty candles.

A hand fluttering at her chest and her eyes looking watery again, she announced she couldn’t blow them out by herself, and so she dragged me, Paige, Cameron, and the girls with her to help. Then all the guests, the dozens upon dozens of them, sang “Happy Birthday” to the beaming woman whom they all came here to honor.

And now, while I’m still taking small, slow bites of my cake to make it last longer, the speeches start. My dad stands up first, and his tribute to his mother is eloquent and reverent of a woman he so obviously holds in the highest regard.

It’s a short speech, though. Dad is famous for his brevity. His lectures at the university always end early, because when it comes to words, he values quality over quantity, and he’s just not the type of person who has a love affair with the sound of his own voice.

This, of course, is as opposed to my mom.

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