And then Dr. Odom went back to the microphone.
He waited. The room had already started to change — that thing where a crowd realizes it has misread something and the sound drains out of it in a wave.
And he said:
“Before we continue. Ten years ago, in the spring of 2016, this school prepared a diploma for a member of the graduating class who did not live to receive it. It has been held in our records office since that time. At the request of her brother, and with the permission of her family, we are going to confer it tonight.”
Then he read her name.
“Willa June Tarrant.”
And he read it correctly, because Cal had given him the card in February and Dr. Odom had had it on his desk for three months.
There was a chair on the stage that I had assumed was for a speaker.
