Turn 72 of 233

Show mom a full body picture of my current state. Skip to end of second retrofitting, it was completed faster and at higher quality than the first. Then go to second tattoo session. Weight is at 275 now

Lena stands in the bathroom and holds her phone at arm's length and takes the picture. She doesn't pose. She doesn't angle. She stands the way she stands on the site — feet planted, shoulders back, belly forward, arms at her sides. The tribal tattoo curves black across her belly, hip to hip. The new ink runs her left shoulder and upper arm, thick lines following the deltoid down the bicep. The steel barbells catch the bathroom light. The grime is layered on her skin — days of sweat and construction dust and river grime built up on a deep tan, the old shorts line gone. Her body hair is thick and dark on her calves, thighs, below her navel, underarms. Her feet are black. She is 275 pounds and six-three and naked and the picture doesn't hide any of it.

She sends it to Janet and types: *This is me, Mom.* Then she sets the phone down and eats breakfast — a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, two pots of rice, three bananas, a quart of milk — and drives to the site. The phone buzzes twice on the passenger seat and she doesn't look at it until she's parked. The first message is from Janet: a single heart emoji. The second is from Janet: *You look strong.* Lena stares at the two messages for a long time. Then she locks the phone and walks onto the site.

The second retrofit finishes in two weeks and two days. The first took three weeks. The crew knows the building type now and Lena has integrated the new film study — the sumo stance for lifting, the wrestling leverage for positioning beams, the Foreman lean for holding material against the frame while the crew drives bolts. The walls go up faster. The steel connections are cleaner. Walt walks the finished retrofit on a Thursday afternoon and checks the connections and the shoring and the weld points and he stands in the middle of the floor and looks at Lena and says, "Better than the first. Same quality, faster build. You're integrating something new."

"Film study," Lena says.

Walt looks at her. "What film?"

"Boxing. Wrestling. Sumo. Offensive line. The principles are the same — leverage, mass, low center of gravity." She shifts her stance as she says it, dropping her hips under an imaginary load, her belly driving forward as a counterweight. Walt watches the movement and nods slowly.

"Whatever it is, it's working. I'm calling Jensen about the bonus line item." He pulls out his phone and walks away and Lena stands in the finished retrofit and the building is good and the work is good and she is 275 pounds and the body is carrying all of it.

Monday evening she drives to Jess's shop for the second session. The upper arm has healed — the lines sharp, the skin smooth, the ink settled into the muscle. Jess takes her arm and turns it and studies the transition point where the upper arm meets the forearm.

"This is the slow part," she says. "The skin is thinner over the bone. It's going to hurt more." She starts the machine and the sound fills the shop and the first line goes in on the forearm and Lena doesn't flinch. The pain is different — sharper, more immediate — but it's the same kind of pain as the press at two-forty, the same kind of pain as mile thirteen. It's the pain of something being built. Three hours. The forearm is half-done when Jess wipes the ink away and says, "One more session. Two weeks." Lena looks at the arm — the tribal black running shoulder to mid-forearm now, thick lines curving and spiraling, following the architecture of the muscle — and it's close. It's almost complete. She drives home and eats dinner and the arm is raw and sore and she presses two-forty anyway and the shake at lockout is worse with the inflammation but the press goes up. She opens her phone and sends Janet another picture — the arm this time, the new ink, the lines running from shoulder to mid-forearm. Janet texts back: *It's beautiful.* Lena locks the phone and lies on the balcony and the night is warm and the grime is thick and she is 275 pounds and comfortable and the arm is almost done.