Then came Claire. My middle girl, my wild card.

She found me in the crowd and waved with both hands, just like she used to wave from the school bus window when she was eight. I waved back with everything I had.

Last came June.

She didn’t smile. She crossed that stage the way she had moved through her whole life, as if she carried something heavier than the rest of us could see. Something heavier than a diploma.

I raised the camera. The shutter clicked. That should have been the end.

Then the dean returned to the microphone and tapped it twice.

I lowered the camera.

Then my girls, or rather young women, came back onto the stage together, holding hands the way they used to when crossing parking lots at five years old.

Something pulled tight in my chest, though I didn’t know why.

June took the microphone.

“Our father couldn’t be here today,” she said.

My stomach dropped through the auditorium floor.

Daniel.