They all looked the same now — red-eyed, ashamed, and small.
“We didn’t think,” Zoey mumbled. “She was just… always there.”
Tyler nodded. “And we took her for granted. I feel sick about it.”
I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to scream. Another part wanted to tell them they didn’t deserve to feel sad. But then I thought of Grandma. I thought of her calling the kids “sweetheart” even when they didn’t answer.
Giving the last cookie to a boy who always looked hungry. How she’d say, “We never know what someone’s going through, so be gentle.”
“We took her for granted.”
We talked,” Brittany added. “All of us. After your speech. And… we want to do something.”
I folded my arms. “Like what?”
“We want to plant a tree-lined walkway on campus,” she said, her voice picking up speed. “Like an alley of trees leading to the cafeteria entrance. A place to sit. A place that feels peaceful. And we want to name it after her. Lorraine’s Way.”
Something inside me cracked. Not in a bad way. Just in that way things do when they’ve been tightly held for too long.
“Like what?”
“You’d do that?” I asked barely above a whisper.
“Yeah,” Marcus said quickly. “We already made a group chat about it. We’re going to talk to Principal Adler. Raise money. Get the PTA involved.”
“She fed us,” Brittany said. Her lips trembled. “Even when we didn’t deserve it.”
I stared at them, these kids who had made my life so hard, and I saw something real in their eyes. Not just guilt. Change.
“She would’ve fed you anyway,” I said.
Change.
That’s when Zoey started crying. Full-on crying, right there in the hallway in her heels and sparkly eye shadow.
“That’s what makes it worse,” she choked out.
Later that night, when the crowd had thinned out and the music was echoing from the parking lot, I went home. Alone.
I unlocked the front door and stood in the silence that was once filled with humming and the clinking of dishes. I sat at the kitchen table where she used to drink her coffee.
Alone.
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