So Cal asked. And Dr. Odom, who has been there nineteen years and who was an assistant principal in 2016 and who was on that track, said yes, it’s here, and then he asked Cal what he wanted to do about it.
They met four more times between January and May. I have since seen the emails.
And two weeks before graduation, at two o’clock in the morning, my son came into the kitchen where I was standing because neither of us had been sleeping much, and told me.
Not all of it. He told me the dress part.
He said, “I’m going to wear Willa’s dress across the stage.”
I want to be honest about my reaction because I have been made out to be very noble in some versions of this and I was not.
I said no.
I said no about nine different ways over the next hour. I said they’ll eat you alive. I said this is a small town and you have to live here all summer. I said your father will lose his mind. I said, and this is the one I’m ashamed of, I said, “Cal, people are going to think things about you.”
