I folded the note back up and stepped out into the heat.
***
The auditorium smelled of floor polish 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 for this exact morning, and I still felt as if I were about to drop a milk bottle.
I unfolded it with both hands.
***
The girls walked across the college stage one after another.
They called Ava first.
She started crying before her name had even finished echoing through the speakers. I watched her wipe her face on the sleeve of that black gown and laugh at herself halfway across the stage.
Then Claire. My middle one, the wild card.
She spotted me in the crowd and waved with both hands, the way she used to wave from the school bus window when she was eight years old. I waved back enthusiastically.
