On graduation day Hana sits three rows ahead of me at the commencement ceremony. As she files past me to take her seat she reaches out for my hand—two long pumps, two short ones—and when she sits down she tilts her head back so I can see that she has taken a marker and scrawled on the top of her graduation cap: THANK GOD! I stifle a laugh, and she turns around and makes a pretend-stern face at me. All of us are giddy, and I’ve never felt closer to the St. Anne’s girls than that day—all of us sweating under the sun, which beams down on us like an exaggerated smile, fanning ourselves with the commencement brochures, trying not to yawn or roll our eyes while Principal McIntosh drones on about “adulthood” and “our entrance into the community order,” nudging one another and tugging on the collars of our scratchy graduation gowns to try to let some air down our necks.
Family members sit in white plastic folding chairs, under a cream white tarp fluttering with flags: the school flag, the city flag, the state flag, the American flag. They applaud politely as each graduate goes up to receive her diploma. When it’s my turn I scan the audience, looking for my aunt and my sister, but I’m so nervous about tripping and falling as I take my place on the stage and reach for the diploma in Principal McIntosh’s hand, I can’t see anything but color—green, blue, white, a mess of pink and brown faces—or make out any individual sounds beyond the shush of clapping hands. Only Hana’s voice, loud and clear as a bell: “Hallelujah, Halena!” That’s our special pump-you-up chant that we used to do before track meets and tests, a combination of both of our names.
Afterward we line up to take individual portraits with our diplomas. An official photographer has been hired, and a royal blue backdrop set up in the middle of the soccer field, where we all stand and pose. We’re too excited to take the pictures seriously, though. People keep doubling over laughing in their pictures, so all you can see is the crown of their heads.
When it’s my turn for a picture, at the very last second Hana jumps in and throws one arm around my shoulders, and the photographer is so startled he presses down on the shutter anyway. Click! There we are: I’m turning to Hana, mouth open, surprised, about to laugh. She’s a full head taller than me, has her eyes shut and her mouth open. I really do think there was something special about that day, something golden and maybe even magic, because even though my face was all red and my hair looked sticky on my forehead, it’s like Hana rubbed off on me a little bit—because despite everything, and just in that one picture, I look pretty. More than pretty. Beautiful, even.
The school band keeps playing, mostly in tune, and the music floats across the field and is echoed by the birds wheeling in the sky. It’s like something lifts in that moment, some huge pressure or divide, and before I know what’s happening all my classmates are crushing together in a huge hug, jumping up and down and screaming, “We did it! We did it! We did it!” And none of the parents or teachers try to separate us. As we start to break away I see them encircling us, watching with patient expressions, hands folded. I catch my aunt’s gaze and my stomach does a weird twist and I know that she, like everyone else, is giving us this moment—our last moment together, before things change for good and forever.
And things will change—are changing, even at that second. As the group dissolves into clumps of students, and the clumps dissolve into individuals, I notice Theresa Grass and Morgan Dell already starting across the lawn toward the street. They are each walking with their families, heads down, without once
looking back. They haven’t been celebrating with us, I realize, and it occurs to me I haven’t seen Eleanor Rana or Annie Hahn or the other cureds either. They must have already gone home. A curious ache throbs in the back of my throat, even though of course this is how things are: Everything ends, people move on, they don’t look back. It’s how they should be.
I catch sight of Rachel through the crowd and go running up to her, suddenly eager to be next to her, wishing she would reach down and ruffle my hair like she used to when I was very little, and say, “Good job, Loony,” her old nickname for me.
“Rachel!” I’m breathless for no reason, and I have trouble squeezing the words out. I’m so happy to see her I feel like I could burst into tears. I don’t though, obviously. “You came.”
“Of course I came.” She smiles at me. “You’re my only sister, remember?” She passes me a bouquet of daisies she has brought with her, loosely wrapped in brown paper. “Congratulations, Lena.”
I stick my face in the flowers and inhale, trying to fight down the urge to reach out and hug her. For a second we just stand there, blinking at each other, and then she reaches out to me. I’m sure she’s going to put her arms around me for old times’ sake, or at the very least give me a one-armed squeeze.
Instead she just flicks a bang off my forehead. “Gross,” she says, still smiling. “You’re all sweaty.”
It’s stupid and immature to feel disappointed, but I do. “It’s the gown,” I say, and realize that yes, that must be the problem: The gown is what’s choking me, stifling me, making it hard to breathe.
“Come on,” she says. “Aunt Carol will want to congratulate you.”