Commencement

by Amy L. Hull

Written for Ayiana2's prompt in the LJ Bitesize_bones "Meme Without a Theme" summer challenge.

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She reaches up and light, patterned cotton ripples over her. She fits her arms through cap sleeves and reaches around to do up the zipper on the first new dress she's had in three years. Nothing from the thrift shops or local clothing stores in the mall would fit.

"For every girl, there should be a pretty dress at important occasions," Frau Becker had declared with that clipped finality that brooked no argument. Even though she didn't drive, Frau Becker had taken her into the city to Marshall Field's for a new dress to fit her lanky but ever curvier figure.

Temperance had felt like they had tried on every dress in the store. Frau Becker, who, over the last seven months, had touched her only to shake Temperance's hand upon her initial arrival or accidentally when passing food at dinner, had tugged and tucked at the dresses. "I was a seamstress, you know, when I have first arrived after the war," she had said.

Temperance had just wanted the background roar of the store and the fussing to stop, had been ready to beg Frau Becker to take her home and just let her wear an old skirt and blouse, when the older woman had brought in this dress. There were shell patterns on a background that swirled with blues that reminded her of where the sky met the ocean on the trip to the beach back when she'd had a family.

When she'd put it on, Frau Becker had tucked at the collar and nodded. "Yes. This one. It shows best the blue of your eyes."

Looking in the mirror, Temperance blinks back tears as she realizes that she looks, like she always wanted to, like her mother. For the first time, she sees that she is pretty.

She sets the mortar board parallel to the floor and pins her graduation cap on. It is not as secure as it could be, but that is because her hair is down, like Dad liked it. He would always twist a curl around his finger, saying, "Give your old dad a hug." No one has hugged her in over two years and her hair is too long to curl. It catches on Mom's earrings, the ones that had been out on the dresser when DCFS drove her away from home for the last time. If she'd had time to plan, she would have picked different ones. These weren't Mom's favorites.

She drapes the gown she ironed so meticulously last night over her arm and heads down the stairs of the ivy-covered cottage. It's just the kind of house she used to think she'd live in when she was a professor. Frau Becker-though she should be Dr. Becker-is a professor of economics and her house is as ordered and structured as her speech and her appearance. It is reassuring, always knowing where things go and how things will be done.

Temperance knows that, as arranged, she and Frau Becker will be picked up by Kendra, the salutatorian, and her father, who will drive them to graduation. They will leave at precisely six. She has 30 minutes until then and she rehearses the speech about the students' futures the school requires her, as valedictorian, to deliver.

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Sitting in the hard chair on stage, she forces herself to hold her hands still in her lap, to keep her head up, her shoulders back, as Frau Becker demands. By next week she will begin classes at Northwestern University and she hopes the scholarship she accepted would make her parents proud. She scans the audience members with their patchwork of clothing and hair colors, facial shapes, movements, and postures. Frau Becker is watching and nods to her with almost a smile.

After the speeches and the calling of names, after the endless repetition of "Pomp and Circumstance," after the cascade of spinning hats rises and falls, the students and audience flow together. She stands apart, watching. There are cheers and hugs and tears and kisses, flashes from cameras, silly poses with groups of students, family groups. Mr. Buxley shakes her hand before excusing himself.

She's not crying, not really, as mothers hug their daughters, as fathers kiss their children on the cheeks, as older and younger siblings wrap themselves around waists and necks.

She looks away from the liquid movement of the crowd and, for a second, a Caucasian male with light hair and round, plain features, seems to be looking at her from near the back of the auditorium. She frowns, tips her head, blinks, and he's gone, swallowed up by people, distance, and inadequate light. If she were less rational, she might think it was Matt Brennan.

"We are ready, Temperance," Frau Becker's voice says next to her. "Your parents, they would be very proud. I believe you will be very successful."

With only one glance back at that aisle near a side door, Temperance follows the older woman out of the auditorium. She has a life to live, and there were no such things as ghosts.

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~the end~

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