The principal, a man named Dr. Okafor who had called our house two weeks earlier to suggest a more appropriate tribute, was standing at the edge of the stage. He had been watching Ethan walk down the aisle. He had seen Ethan stop at my row. He had seen the photograph.
He walked to the microphone.
The auditorium was already quiet, but the sound of a principal clearing his throat at a graduation ceremony carries its own particular authority, and six hundred people turned toward him with the attentive silence of an audience that has just realized the program has changed.
Dr. Okafor told the auditorium that he wanted to share something he should have shared at the beginning of the ceremony.
He told them that a member of the graduating class was not present tonight. He told them her name was Lily Harmon. He told them she had been enrolled at Willowcrest High for three years before her passing eleven months ago. He told them she had been a member of the honor society, the debate team, and the art club. He told them she had planned to attend graduation in a red dress she ordered from a hospital bed.
