Then the dean returned to the microphone and tapped it twice.
“We have one more presentation before we close.”
I lowered the camera.
That was supposed to be the end of it.
Then my girls—or, rather, the young women they’d become—walked back onto the stage together, holding hands just as they had when they were five years old crossing parking lots.
Something clenched inside my chest, though I couldn’t explain why.
June reached for the microphone.
“Our father couldn’t be here today,” she said.
My stomach seemed to fall straight through the floor of the auditorium.
Daniel.
Something tightened in my chest, but I couldn’t say why.
They were about to talk about Daniel.
Twenty-two years of birthday cards he never sent, calls he never made, and now, on the one day I’d actually come to witness, they were going to honor the man who hadn’t. Pain climbed into my throat as though it had been waiting all along. I told myself to remain seated, smile, and allow them to have this moment if that was what they needed.
