“Come take a bow,” Chloe called.
Laughing, Rhett and I headed up the aisle to the stage. He hopped up and helped me up, too. Once I stood beside him, he reached out and grabbed one of Livvie’s hands, who did the same thing to Chloe, who already held Bran’s hand so that we formed an unbroken chain. Rhett took a deep bow and tugged Livvie and I down with him. Bran and Chloe joined in, and we spent a full minute bowing with increasingly ridiculous flourishes. Finally, Rhett let go of my hand, and they all stepped back, leaving me in the spotlight.
“No way,” I said, with a classic Livvie foot stamp. “Get back here. This wouldn’t have happened without y’all.”
Suddenly the house lights flared into life. “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” Mr. Gervis called from the back of the theater. “I need to close up.”
“Yes, sir!” I said. With a whole lot more giggling, we scrambled down and back to the foyer to find it empty of all but the Applied Design students and anyone who had stayed behind to help them pack up.
I walked to my dress form and touched the button necklace. This piece, even more than the design ideas I had lifted from the pages ofThe Tale of Tear Girl, honored my mom in the best way I knew how, by finding the beautiful in the ordinary.
For once, in this moment, it was enough.
