He saw me in the crowd and waved with both hands, as he used to greet from the school bus window when he was eight. I stepped back with enthusiasm.
First they called Ava.
Finally, June arrived.
She didn’t smile, but walked through that scenario the same way she had walked through her entire life, as if she were carrying something heavier than the rest of us could see. Something heavier than a diploma.
I picked up the camera. The shutter clicked. That was supposed to be the end.
Then the dean took a step back towards the microphone and hit him twice.
“We have one more presentation before we close.”
I lowered the camera.
That was supposed to be the end.
Then my girls, or rather young women, walked back to the stage together, hand in hand, the way they used to cross the parking lots when they were five.
Something squeezed into my chest, but I couldn’t tell why.
June took the microphone.
“Our father couldn’t be here today,” he said.
My stomach fell down the floor of that auditorium.
Daniel.
Something squeezed into my chest, but I couldn’t tell why.
They were going to talk about Daniel.
Twenty-two years of birthday cards he never sent, phone calls he never made, and now, the only day he had really introduced me to, they were going to honor the man who didn’t.
Magazines
I felt the pain rising in my throat as if I had been waiting. I told myself to stay still, smiled and had this if they needed it.
Ava got into the sleeve of her robe and pulled out a piece of folded paper. Claire squeezed her hand over her mouth, and I saw her shoulders tremble.
I felt the pain in my throat.
“We found the notebook,” June said. “He who is in the kitchen drawer.”
I closed my eyes and grabbed the camera so hard that I heard the plastic crack. I thought of the gas receipt note, still folded in my wallet. I thought of Patricia, and every birthday I had sat on that deformed kitchen table with a pen, writing to three girls who were already asleep.
At that time, I told myself that they had read it someday or would not, and either way I had said what I needed to say.
