Chapter 24: Commencement

I didn't try to bribe Maddie.

I tried twice to bribe Will's mother, on the phone, with a cheesecake.

She said she'd been bribed by better and hung up laughing.

So I opened the bag on the morning of commencement, alone in three-fourteen, with the new radiator ticking quietly under the window.

Inside was a robe.

The black robe a chair wears at commencement, with the long bell sleeves.

My grandfather's had been rented every year for forty years. It had smelled like a closet.

This one was new.

The wool was soft and heavy and cut close at the shoulders, for me.

When I turned the front panel back, the lining was a deep blue silk.

The same blue as the inside of my mother's jacket.

Under the yoke, two tiny blue cross-stitches.

Along the hem, a row of small, perfect stitches that weren't Maddie's.

They were older hands. Steadier. Nineteen years of shirts.

Pinned to the collar was a card in Will's terrible handwriting.

"So you don't have to wear a rented one over hers."

I sat on my bed and held it for a long time.

Then I put on my mother's suit, mended up the back.

I put on the silk shirt Maddie made, the pleats running right to left.

I put the robe on over both and went out.

Commencement was on the quad.

They'd built the stage in front of the library, right where the brick path ran.

Three thousand white chairs filled the grass. Families packed the edges under the trees.

I sat on the stage with the president and the trustees in the bright May sun.

The oldest trustee sat beside me with her cane across her knees.

"Nice robe," she said.

"It was a gift."

"I know. That boy's mother told me about it at the show. Twice."

The names started.

Hundreds of them. Undergraduates, then the graduate schools.

I shook every hand. It was my job to hand out the diplomas this year, the way my grandfather had.

Halfway through the seniors, a blond buzz cut came up the steps.

Tyler took the diploma from me with both hands.

"Thank you, Ms. Carlisle," he said.

"Congratulations, Tyler."

In the front family row, nobody stood up for him.

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