Margaret Walks Across the High School Stage on a Warm June Morning
“I need you to sign this, Brian,” I said. “We have sixty-four names from our neighbors already.”
Brian stopped the running water, his shoulders dropping as he stared into the stainless-steel basin. “We should let the school handle it their own way, Margaret.”
“Our daughter spent four years in that building,” I said.
“And she is not there anymore,” Brian said, his voice gruff and tight. “Signing this will only make people in town think we are looking for a fight.”
“It is not a fight, it is her memory,” I said.
Brian dried his hands on a kitchen towel, refusing to look at the paper on the table.
The sound of Brian closing the basement door to avoid further discussion filled the quiet kitchen.
The school board meeting room was situated on the second floor of the administration annex, a brick building that had once been the old Oak Creek elementary school where Olivia had attended kindergarten.
The room smelled of lemon wax and old carpeting, the air-conditioning humming a low, vibrating note that made the metal folding chairs shudder.
