Margaret Walks Across the High School Stage on a Warm June Morning
“They just want everything to be quiet,” Kayla said, her voice rising with sudden energy.
“They think if they don’t talk about it, nobody will notice that she isn’t there on stage,” she said.
“I felt so small in that room,” I said.
“I felt like an intruder in my own daughter’s school,” I said.
“You aren’t an intruder,” Kayla said, turning her head to look at me.
“We are going to make them look,” she said.
“We are going to make them hear us,” she said.
“There is nothing else to do,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“The board is not going to change their minds,” I said.
Kayla did not answer, but her fingers stopped twisting her backpack strap.
She stared at the dark windows of the school, her jaw set tight behind her spectacles.
“I should get you home,” she said after a long silence.
The kitchen was dark when I let myself in, except for the small light over the stove that cast a yellow glow across the linoleum.
Brian was standing by the sink, holding an empty glass under the tap, and the faucet dripped once, a sharp metallic sound in the quiet.
