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slanted like antennae, and she said something under her breath. Katie could hear Gwen’s sharp response.
    “Well, life isn’t fair, Lacey. Do you think I asked for these ankles? But you have to be strong and push through. We all endure a lot of things. I slept with your father’s chain-saw snores every night for six years. I have him to thank for my tinnitus. You can sit through this. Watch how it’s done. Watch Devon.”
    Standing before the pit, padded on all sides and filled to the brink with foam blocks, each one a jewel facet, Devon couldn’t even speak. Her hand finding Eric’s arm, she set her right foot on one of its soft foam edges, and then she looked up at her dad as if unsure.
    But he nodded, and she nodded. Across the floor, Katie found herself envying them the moment, it felt so potent.
    As everyone watched, Devon walked over to the foot of the vault runway, eyes on the springboard, the vault table. Rotating her wrists, shaking them. Then, at last, charging down that runway with no hesitation at all, her body soaring into a double-twist Yurchenko that made the whole gym gasp and aah .
    Everyone cried. Katie couldn’t stop.
      
    Later that night, Katie found Drew at the kitchen table, viewing the Olympics closing ceremonies on her laptop.
    “Devon didn’t want to watch,” he said, shrugging at the hallway leading into the den.
    Walking by, she saw Eric and Devon absorbed in old footage of Devon’s first meet, a bowl of popcorn between them. She almost felt like she was intruding.
    There was such a look of calm on Devon’s face, for the first time since Elite Qualifiers, that Katie found herself retreating, not wanting to disturb. So she sat at the table with Drew, the sound turned low so Devon couldn’t hear the fireworks, the jammy-voiced children’s choir, the big horns.
    After Drew went to bed, she could still hear Eric and Devon through the wall.
    “The new vault table, it’s the greatest ever, Dad,” she said. “And my landings are sticking. I’m going to do better.”
    “Devon, you don’t—”
    “It won’t ever be like that again. Like at qualifiers. I’m going to make up for everything.”
    “Hey, Devon,” Eric said, and Katie could hear him shushing her, soothing her, telling her she was perfect as she was and that all he and her mom wanted was for her to be happy.
    Katie listened, closing the hot laptop to muffle it.
      
    The Olympics over, the foam pit and new equipment in place, along with a sense of renewed purpose, it felt like a spell had been broken.
    To celebrate, Teddy engineered a (booster-sponsored) overnight trip to attend something called Gymnastics on Ice at the state capital. It would have been a forgettable experience had Hailey and Ryan not been invited and had Ryan not arrived two hours late, long after the postshow dinner during which Hailey texted helplessly at the table, fearful he had perished on some remote roadside. What would I do, Mrs. Knox?
    An hour later, all the BelStars and booster chaperoneslooked on from their balconies at the Ramada as Hailey and Ryan, resplendent as a pair of movie stars, bucked and brawled down by the pool, or Hailey did. You couldn’t help but watch, Hailey crying and casting the sunflowers he’d brought into the searing chlorine, and Ryan still as a statue, gently pleading, or so it looked.
    “Teddy must’ve taken a whole bottle of Nyquil to sleep through this,” Eric said, coming up behind Devon. “Should I go down?”
    Katie shook her head, watching from the sliding glass door.
    “Why does he just stand there?” Devon asked, but she looked captivated, moving closer to the balcony edge, her toes curling there. Her face open in ways Katie rarely saw.
    “Give them some privacy,” Eric said, summoning her back into the room.
    “That’ll be Devon someday,” Katie whispered to Eric. He gave her a queasy look in return that made her laugh.
    Everyone inside, Katie stayed a moment longer. Soon enough, as the