Turn 139 of 233

Take Kimo to Janet and Samuel's house for the first time. Weigh myself as well. I am at 600 now. Obviously I continued my other workouts as well. Kimo is always harnessed to me when I am doing it. Except for the pushups, there I put him on the balcony

The scale in the bathroom is the scale Lena bought when she was 167 pounds and the scale still works and the number on the screen is 600 and the number is the number. Lena stands on it barefoot on the tiled bathroom floor — the only tile floor in the apartment, the one room with plumbing she still uses, the toilet — and the tribal ink is black under the fluorescent light and the piercings catch the glare and the belly hangs heavy and soft over her thighs and the thighs are thick and solid and the calves are dense and the feet are callused and cracked and dark and the number is 600. She steps off. The number doesn't surprise her. The number is the continuation of a line that started at 167 and went through 178 and 200 and 225 and 365 and 580 and the line goes up and the line is the line and the line is hers.

The workouts have continued. Every morning before the site — the balcony, the Olympic barbell, the plates. Kimo in the harness for everything except the pushups. For the pushups Lena lays him on the balcony floor on a blanket and the boy watches her from below and the humming is steady and the 600-pound body lowers and rises and lowers and rises and the arms shake on the last three and the shaking is the shaking of a body that is pushing against its own mass and the pushing is the point. The pressing is 515 now — up from 500 — and the bar bends under the weight and the belly rises with the breath and Kimo watches from the blanket and the boy is calm. The running continues. Thirty miles on Saturday with Sina. Six miles on weekday mornings with Kimo in the jogging stroller. The body is 600 pounds and the body runs and lifts and frames walls and the body is strong and the body is soft and the body is both and the both is the thing.

Saturday afternoon after the run Lena puts Kimo in the car seat and drives north. The highway opens and the Florida flatness goes by and the boy sleeps and the truck is the truck and the drive is two hours and Lena's feet are raw from thirty miles and the rawness is the rawness she knows. Janet and Samuel live in a one-story house in a development with manicured lawns and the house is the house Lena grew up visiting and the driveway is clean and the garage door is open and Samuel is in the garage sorting tools he doesn't need to sort because Samuel sorts tools when he is nervous.

Lena pulls into the driveway and the truck is loud and Samuel looks up from the tools and the looking is the looking of a man seeing his daughter step out of a truck weighing 600 pounds, naked, tattooed from ankle to neck, pierced, carrying a baby in a harness against a chest that is bare and inked and the baby is humming. Janet comes to the front door and the screen door opens and the face is the face that tries and the trying is the trying that Lena loves.

"Come in," Janet says. "Both of you. Come in."

Lena walks through the front door and the house smells like Janet's cooking — garlic and sesame oil and rice — and Kimo wakes in the harness and the humming shifts and the boy's dark eyes track the hallway and the family photos on the wall. Samuel follows from the garage and the tools are abandoned and the following is the following of a man who doesn't know what to do with his hands. Lena sets the car seat on the couch and lifts Kimo out and holds him and the boy is twenty-plus pounds and the boy is wide and the boy is humming.

"Mom. Dad. This is Kimo. He's four weeks old. Twenty pounds. This is your grandson."

Janet takes him first. The hands are steady and the arms are strong and the boy settles against her chest and the humming matches Janet's heartbeat and Janet's eyes are wet and the wetness is not sad. The wetness is the wetness of a woman holding a name — Kimo, the name of her husband's father, the name that comes from a village and a man who was nineteen pounds at birth — and the name is in her arms and the name is alive.

"He's beautiful," Janet says. The voice is thick.

"Samuel. Come here."

Samuel comes. The approach is slow and the hands are out and the hands are the hands of a mason's son and the hands are rough and careful and he takes Kimo from Janet and the boy is in his arms and the arms hold him and the humming changes — a new note, a different resonance, the resonance of a man holding the name of the man who made him. Samuel doesn't say anything. The silence is the Samuel silence and the silence is full and the boy hums against his chest and the garage is forgotten and the tools are forgotten and the house smells like garlic and sesame oil and the afternoon is the afternoon.

"He's big," Samuel says. The word is the word and the word is enough.

"He's big," Lena says. "Like his grandfather."

Samuel doesn't give the words back. He holds the boy and the boy holds the moment and Janet puts her hand on Samuel's shoulder and the hand is the hand that has been there for thirty years and the structure holds.