I was wondering if the girls would mention Daniel today. I was wondering, worse, if you wished him would come in his place.
I doubled the note and went out in the heat.
***
The auditorium smelled of polishing of soil and cheap perfume. I sat seven rows back with my camera resting on my bad knee, trying to keep my hands steady. Twenty-two years of waiting this exact morning, and I still felt like I was about to drop a bottle of milk.
I deployed it with both hands.
***
The girls walked the college stage one after the other.
First they called Ava.
He started crying before his name had finished echoing through the speakers. I saw her wipe her face on the sleeve of that black dress and laugh at herself halfway across the stage.
Then Claire. My half, the wild.
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.College application assistance
