Aaron pressed the note into my hand. Mary’s handwriting covered the front. I recognized the slant of every letter before I could make out a single word.
“Read it, Mom,” he said. “She wanted you to hear it from both of us.”
Part Six | The Words Mary Left Behind
I unfolded the note, but the letters blurred at once. My vision filled with tears. Aaron crouched beside my chair and placed his hand over mine, the way he used to do when he and Mary were children and one of them had scraped a knee.
Mary had written that she knew she might not live long enough to attend graduation. She hated writing the words. She hated imagining Aaron crossing the stage without her. But she did not want the ceremony to become another place where everyone looked only at the empty space she had left behind.
She wrote that the red dress had been chosen for a happy day. If she could not wear it, she did not want it sealed away in a closet as though remembering her were dangerous. She wanted the dress to be seen. She wanted her family to speak her name.
Then she wrote the sentence that broke what was left of my strength: even if her seat was empty, both of her children were still going to graduate.
I pressed the note to my chest. A sob rose out of me before I could stop it. For weeks, I had been trying to be the strong mother Aaron needed. I had swallowed my own grief so he would not have to carry mine too.
But there, in the middle of the auditorium, with Mary’s flower resting in Aaron’s palm, I stopped pretending I was holding together.
Aaron stood and wrapped his arms around me. I clung to him. The red fabric brushed my shoulder, and for a second I could almost imagine Mary’s impatient voice telling us not to make such a scene in public.
“Why did you keep this from me?” I whispered.
“Because you would have tried to protect me from it,” he said.
I closed my eyes. “I almost did anyway.”
“I know.”
