She paused.
“He said, ‘Make sure they remember I was actually part of the class.’”
Emma took a breath.
“So I thought about what I could do. I couldn’t bring him back. I couldn’t make him healthy. I couldn’t give him the future we planned.”
She adjusted his crooked cap.
“But I could make him impossible to overlook.”
I covered my mouth.
For two years, I had watched my daughter carry a grief she could never explain completely. Now she was standing in front of hundreds of people, telling them the truth without asking for their pity.
She wasn’t trying to make anyone feel guilty.
She was asking them to see her brother as a person.
A person who had laughed, argued, dreamed, and wanted to grow up.
A person who should have been there.
Principal William looked down at the letter again.
When he finally spoke, his voice had changed.
