Turn 157 of 228

Tell Diane about the 1,450 number and ask if she's weighed herself recently

Diane is still on the warehouse floor, the 905 pounds settled into the concrete, the bare feet extended across the bay, the yellow toenails catching the security light. She hasn't moved since she sat down. The beard rests on the belly. The body hair mats against the floor. The expression on her face is the one that stopped being managed — open, still, comfortable.

"I weighed myself," Lena says.

Diane looks up. Way up. The twelve-foot body against the wall, the belly resting on the concrete between the thighs, the yellow nails on the phone. The warehouse is quiet except for the triplets babbling in the office doorway — June pulling herself upright on the shelving, Iris watching, Mae eating something Carl left on the floor.

"And?" Diane says.

"Fourteen fifty."

Diane doesn't move. The face stays open. The eyes stay on Lena. The warehouse is quiet. Then the beard shifts — the mouth underneath it doing something that isn't quite a smile, something that lives in the space between recognition and awe.

"Four hundred pounds in a month," Diane says. The voice is low, the stretched vocal cords, the deeper chest.

"That's not weight gain. That's — that's a different rate. That's a different mechanism. When I was gaining, it was maybe fifteen, twenty pounds a month. You're at four hundred. After the skeletal growth."

"The wish opened something," Lena says. "The bones grew and then the mass followed. Not just fat — the frame is bigger and the frame needs to be filled and the wish is filling it."

Diane nods. The 905 pounds shift on the concrete. The stretch marks catch the light.

"Have you weighed yourself?" Lena says.

Diane is quiet. The beard. The body hair. The bare feet on the concrete, the enormous flat feet, the yellow toenails thick as tiles. She looks at the industrial scale across the bay — the steel platform, the digital readout, the platform that Carl dragged from the shipping supply company.

"Not since the hospital," Diane says. "I've been — I've been avoiding it. The skeletal growth threw me. I was seven-eighty at the last appointment. Then the bones grew and I could feel the weight coming but I didn't want to know the number. I didn't want to track it the way I tracked quarterly reports. I didn't want to manage it."

"But?" Lena says.

"But I've been gaining. I can feel it. The belly is heavier. The arms are thicker. The beard is — I think the beard is growing faster. The body hair is denser. I can feel the weight in my feet when I stand — the concrete feels different than it did a month ago. Softer. Like I'm pressing harder into it."

Diane stands. The warehouse floor shakes. Nine feet six inches of naked, unwashed, bearded, hairy, yellow-nailed body rising to full height. The head near the ductwork. The belly hanging past the knees. The stretch marks running down every limb. She walks to the scale. The bare feet boom on the concrete. The 905 pounds — the number that was true a month ago — step onto the steel platform.

The readout climbs. 900. 910. 920. The numbers keep moving. Diane watches. The beard. The face. The expression that stopped being managed. 930. 940. The numbers slow. 945. 950. The readout settles.

Diane steps off. The platform groans. She turns to Lena. The nine-six frame. The 950 pounds. The belly. The beard. The bare feet.

"Forty-five pounds," Diane says. "Not four hundred. But forty-five. In a month. That's — that's more than before. Before the skeletal growth, it was maybe ten, fifteen a month. This is three times that."

"The skeletal growth changed your rate too," Lena says.

"Not like yours," Diane says. "Not four hundred. But the frame is bigger and the frame is filling and the frame isn't done filling. I said the growth stopped. The bones stopped. The weight didn't."

Lena watches her. The hum is steady — three heartbeats from the triplets, warm, patient. The warehouse holds them both. Twelve feet and nine-six. 1,450 and 950. Two bodies that don't fit in buildings, standing on an industrial scale in a converted warehouse on the south side of the city, naked and unwashed and barefoot and comfortable.

"We're not done," Diane says. Not a question. The voice is low. The beard shifts.

"Neither of us."

"No," Lena says. "We're not."

Billy Jo is in the doorway. The laptop. The yellow nails. She heard everything. She's already typing. The study is eighty-three pages.