Rebecca and her son followed several steps behind, but she did not walk beside him.
When the doors closed, the room remained quiet.
The dean approached the microphone.
“Mr.
Mercer, I believe three graduates are waiting for an answer.”
Laughter moved gently through the audience, breaking the tension.
Claire offered me the pen.
My hand shook as I signed Ava’s petition first.
She pressed both hands over her mouth and sobbed.
I signed Claire’s next.
She leaned her forehead against my shoulder.
Then I reached June’s page.
June, who had always carried the heaviest things without asking for help, was crying openly.
Before I signed, I looked at all three of them.
“I should have told you about the note,” I said.
Ava shook her head.
“You were protecting us.”
“I was also protecting myself.
I was afraid you’d read it and realize I wasn’t enough.”
June stepped closer.
“We read it and realized you were everything.”
I signed the final page.
The court clerk notarized each signature.
The papers still had to be filed and reviewed, but to us, the decision had already been made.
The girls wrapped their arms around me as the auditorium rose again.
For the first time in my life, I allowed myself to hear what they were calling me.
Dad.
After the ceremony, we tried to leave through a side corridor.
We had barely made it past the faculty offices when Daniel appeared near the loading entrance.
He had slipped away from security and was waiting alone.
His tie hung loose around his neck.
The expensive confidence he had arrived with was gone.
“We need to talk privately,” he said.
June stepped in front of her sisters.
“There’s nothing private left.”
Daniel looked at me.
“You planned this.”
“I didn’t know about the petitions.”
“But you poisoned them against me.”
Ava laughed once, without humor.
“You weren’t around long enough for anyone to poison us against you.”
Daniel ignored her.
“You have no idea what it was like after Melissa died,” he told me.
“I couldn’t breathe in that house.
Every time one of them cried, I heard her voice.”
For the first time that day, he sounded less angry than frightened.
I remembered the morning he had arrived at my apartment.
His hair had been unwashed.
His eyes were red.
He had carried Ava’s car seat up the stairs, gone back for Claire, then returned with June and the diaper bag.
He had stood in my doorway for several seconds, unable to look at them.
I knew he had been shattered.
But grief explained the first morning.
It did not explain the next eight thousand.
“I would have understood if you needed help,” I said.
