My mother, Patricia Carter, sat stiffly with both hands clasped around her purse. Her knuckles were pale, her lips pressed into the same thin line I remembered from childhood whenever life refused to bend to her wishes. Beside her sat my father, Thomas Carter, wearing a navy suit that had become a little too tight over the years. He gripped the graduation program while scanning the printed names with the desperate focus of a man searching for a long-lost investment.
They looked older than I remembered.
Smaller, too.
That surprised me.
For years, in my mind, they had remained larger than life—cold, towering figures standing over a hospital bed while I learned that some parents could choose money over their own child and still sleep peacefully at night.
But sitting there among hundreds of cheering families, they looked ordinary.
Just two aging people carrying the weight of choices they had hoped time would erase.
Two seats away sat Grace Bennett.
