The scholarship ceremony was in the same brick auditorium where I had first met Ellis, and the seats were full. Parents in their good coats. Siblings in hand-me-down sneakers. Fifty students on the stage in rented gowns, and behind them a banner with the foundation's name that I had paid to reprint because the old one had our mother's title on it and nobody had updated it since she died.
I sat in the front row. Marguerite sat beside me. Blair's chair was empty.
Ellis introduced me, and I stood up and said the things you say, about opportunity and community and the generosity of a woman who had believed in this program before any of us. I did not mention the vote. I did not mention the binder. But when I looked out at the students, I saw one girl in the second row with a stiff new haircut
