For twelve years, the whole school called her "Trash Girl" because her mother collected cans for a living — until graduation night, when she said one sentence into the microphone and four hundred people rose to their feet in tears.

I put the notebook back under the sink, wrapped in its plastic bag, exactly as I'd found it.

The week before graduation, Ms. Fairchild kept me after class to go over my speech.

"Write it plainly," she said. "Say what's true. Don't dress it up."

"What if they laugh?"

"Then let them laugh, and say it anyway."

That night, I laid my cap and gown on the bed.

I took the blue shirt from its hook, the one with the faded collar and the red-stitched sleeve, and I pressed it flat.

My mother stood in the doorway in her sock feet.

"You're not going to wear that under your gown?"

"I am."

"Honey, you've got that nice white blouse."

"Mom," I said. "I want to wear this one."

She looked at the shirt for a long time.

Then she smiled, and it was the strangest smile, proud and frightened at once.