Chapter 23: The Front Row Again

The family row was four folding chairs at the foot of the stage, and Cora had put a printed card on three of them.

Mine said MOM.

Simon's said MR. FESSENDEN, in a handwriting I recognized as hers, and he ran his thumb over the ink twice before he sat.

The third said GRANDPA.

The fourth chair had no card at all.

"Who's the empty one for?" Simon asked, low.

"I don't know," I said. "She wouldn't tell me."

The gym filled behind us with parents holding phones.

I wore the green dress and my mother's pearls.

The hair had grown back over the scar, and I had left it uncovered.

The principal read the names slowly, one by one.

I clapped for strangers' children, for a boy whose father shouted from the balcony, and for a girl who tripped on her gown and laughed.

"Cora Farwell."

She climbed the steps in her white gown with her chin up.

She did not have honors or a medal, and her class rank had a line through it that she would carry for years.

The principal put the diploma in her hand.

Cora turned toward the front row.

She looked at me for a long moment with her mouth pressed flat, and then she smiled so wide that her whole face changed.

I stood up.

I had not planned to.

Simon stood next to me, and then every row behind us stood.

They were a hundred strangers rising for a girl they had heard confess on a stage a few weeks before.

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