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.

A very big handbag.

Heavy.

Pale orange stitching along the seam.

I knew that bag.

I had known it for four years.

Georgina Haverford stood in the middle of a crowded gym with her face already wet.

"Mom?" Madison turned all the way around in her seat. "Mom. What are you doing?"

Her mother didn't answer.

She was looking straight past her daughter, past the stage and the bunting and four hundred heads, down the long middle aisle, all the way to the back row.

At my mother.

"Sit down," Madison hissed. "Everyone's looking."

"Yes," Georgina said, in a voice that carried more than she'd intended. "I know."

And then she did not sit down.

The second to stand was Mr. Granger, our principal, who had been on stage behind me in his black robe, holding a folder of diplomas.

He was fifty-eight, with a crew cut and a stiff, careful way of walking, and he had never once, in four years, said more than ten words to me.