The night is hers to leave.
She leaves it every time she tells the truth in a small room.
She leaves it when she does not say nothing.
She leaves it when she does not say sweetheart to shrink a girl.
She leaves it when she watches hands.
She leaves it when she hands June a napkin and June says thanks, as if a napkin were a serious gift, and Claire thinks of a barbecue that was not a club, and the story folds into itself without needing a garden to finish it.
The garden already finished.
It finished unfinished.
That is allowed.
Unfinished is the honest form.
A finished toast would have been the lie.
Claire chose the honest form in satin, in grass, in summer, under lights that stayed pretty while she took the pretty away from the people who had used it as cover.
Cover off.
Waist seen.