Margaret Walks Across the High School Stage on a Warm June Morning
“I thought it was for the best,” Brian said. “The town needed that library, Margaret. The other children needed a place to study. Olivia would have wanted them to have it.”
“Olivia would not have wanted her father to help them pretend she never lived,” I said.
“That is not what I am doing,” Brian said, his voice rising slightly before dropping back into a gruff whisper. “I am trying to protect you. I am trying to protect us from being the center of some public fight that we cannot win.”
“You were protecting Charles Sterling’s investment,” I said.
“No,” Brian said, shaking his head. “I was trying to keep our daughter’s memory from being used as a political football. Vance is going to do what he wants anyway. He has the board behind him.”
“Because they all took the money,” I said.
“They took the money to build a school,” Brian said. “It wasn’t personal, Margaret.”
“It feels personal when it is your child they are erasing,” I said.
Brian stood up from the table, his chair scraping loudly against the linoleum. He did not look at the contract again.
