Maybe for later.
Maybe forever.
The following May, I graduated.
Not at twenty-six as I had once planned.
At thirty-five.
Ethan sat in the audience wearing a tie he hated.
My parents sat beside him.
Denise and Jonathan sat on the other side.
Lily had come home from a school trip early to attend.
When my name was called, I walked across the stage.
I expected to look at Ethan.
Instead, for one moment, I looked at all of them.
My mother crying.
My father clapping.
Denise standing.
Jonathan beside her.
Lily holding up her phone.
And Ethan.
My son was not filming.
He simply watched me.
The same way I had watched him three years earlier.
With certainty.
After the ceremony, he found me in the crowd.
“I have something for you.”
He handed me a white bakery box.
I laughed.
“Should I be concerned?”
“Open it.”
Inside was a small cake.
