AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We don’t always choose what happens to us. But we choose what we do with it.
That was true. His mother had been murdered. Her case gone cold, never solved. He’d essentially grown up at Miss Gail’s, a small, safe group home. He hadn’t chosen any of that. But he chose to stay in school, to take the comfort and the security Miss Gail offered, to do well and keep his grades up. And now he was graduating high school. In the fall, he’d go off to college, a full ride to MIT, the essay about his hardships certainly playing a factor.
Resilience.Miss Gail’s favorite word.Fall down seven, get up eight. That’s it. Sometimes I suspect it’s the thing that separates success from failure, maybe the only thing.
A slight rap on the door.
“Are you awake, graduate?” Miss Gail asked, a singsong lilt to her voice.
“Yes,” he answered. “I’ll be right down.”
He was the only one still staying with Miss Gail. Other boys had come and gone. Orphaned boys, or kids taken from abusive homes, sometimes returned to those homes after a while. Sometimes they ran off; some of them stealing from Miss Gail. Some boys came in the middle of the night. Henry had spent a lot of hours lying awake listening to one of the new arrivals weeping. Some of them got into trouble, were arrested for drugs or assault. Henry had been there through it all. He helped Miss Gail now—with the cooking, the chores, getting the new kids settled, serving as a role model when he could. But for a while, more than six months, it had just been the two of them.
Down in the foyer, Miss Gail fixed his tie, tried to pretend she wasn’t crying. She was dressed in a blue shift, had her wild red hair tamed into a bun.
“I’m proud of you, son,” she whispered, putting a warm, plump hand to his cheek. “Not everyone could do what you have done.”
“I couldn’t have done any of it without you,” he said.
She waved him off, a flush coming to her cheeks. She moved toward the door and held it open. “Let’s go get that diploma.”
He waited a second, looked at her, the open door. He felt a flood of emotion, which he tamped down.
“Someday, I’m going to pay you back.” It was all he could think to say.
She shook her head, eyes brimming. “You’ve already done that. A thousand times over. Just by being you.”
Outside, the gray morning had turned brilliant.
By the time they got to the school the sky was a bright blue, sun shining. There were balloons tied to the outdoor stage, a big banner congratulating the graduates. Cars pulled up, parents and students, lots of smiles, shrieks of joy, tears. The air was electric with excitement, anticipation of the future.
He was only watching for one person; his heart leapt like it did every time she moved into his line of sight. Piper. A periwinkle dress that clung to her waist and flared around her legs, hair swept up, a blush gloss on her lips. She was more woman than girl now. But he knew her knees were scuffed beneath that pretty dress from her weekend soccer tournament.
“You look very handsome, Henry,” said Piper’s mother, Gretchen. She put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re so, so proud of you.”
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
Piper’s father, Paul, hung back a bit, aloof and bespectacled, slim. He’d never really warmed to Henry, though he was always cordial.
“Congratulations, Henry,” he said. “MIT is a good fit for a mind like yours.”
They shook hands. A mind like his. It seemed like a strange thing to say, but the other man was smiling, an arm around his daughter. Piper slipped away from her father to embrace Henry, and Henry locked eyes with the older man for just a moment. Finally, Piper’s father looked away with a resigned nod.
Piper sat next to Henry with the rest of the graduates, took his hand in hers and they laced fingers listening to the principal’s address about the road ahead, and learning to love change, and leading with your heart.
“Maybe you’re not such a loser after all,” she said quietly.
“You either.”
It wasn’t until he’d received his diploma and was posing for pictures with Piper and their friends, that he saw Detective West hanging back by the edge of the football field.
West checked in with Henry every few months, letting him know that even though the case was cold, West was still digging, still looking for answers. Henry didn’t want to tell him thathehad let Alice go, that he’dhad toin order to move on. He’d had to accept that he might never know who his father was, who had killed Alice, who she had really been, even, in fact whohe was.
Miss Gail and Detective West, through some herculean effort had managed to get him his own social security card. He remembered Miss Gail losing her temper at City Hall. “Well, I know he doesn’t have a birth certificate, but he does exist! He’s right here.”
He used that social security number to get his driver’s license. They were never able to find his actual birth certificate, though. Searching for answers was a black hole he’d almost let swallow him. When he saw West pulling up to the curb, or waiting for him after football practice, or like now, lingering on the edge of this graduation, he didn’t feel hope, or even curiosity. It was cold dread.
Miss Gail was chatting with Piper’s parents, and Henry walked over to see the old cop, something pressing into the middle of his chest.
