I spent the weeks before graduation preparing myself to walk across the stage alone. My parents were gone, my grandmother was too frail to attend, and everyone else had someone cheering for them. Then, just as I was slipping out of the ceremony unnoticed, someone covered my eyes from behind.
The house always smelled like cinnamon and old paper, even in the months after the funeral.
I’d come home from school, drop my backpack by the door, and find Nana Ruth at the kitchen table, her reading glasses sliding down her nose, a pen trembling in her hand.
“You’re home early, sugar,” she’d say, sliding something under a dish towel.
“It’s 4:15, Nana. Same time as always.”
“Is it? My goodness. Time just gets away from me.”
I didn’t ask what she was writing. I figured it was bills or one of those long letters she sent to her sister in Georgia.
November had taken my parents on a wet stretch of highway. By March, I’d learned how to live like a ghost.
“Did you eat lunch today?” she asked.
“Yeah, Nana.”
“With who?”
“Just some kids.”
It wasn’t a lie if you said it quietly enough. There were no “some kids.” There was a corner table by the vending machines, a tuna sandwich, and a paperback I’d read four times.
At school, graduation was the only word people used now.
“My grandparents are flying in from Phoenix,” Madison announced in homeroom. “My mom already ordered, like, six bouquets.”
“My whole family is renting an Airbnb,” Jacob said. “Even my cousins from Texas.”
“Em, what about you?” Madison turned, smiling kindly. “Is your grandma coming?”
“She’s gonna try,” I said. “Her knees, you know.”
