Chapter 8 - WHAT GRACE ACTUALLY LEFT
Months later, our foundation archivist found a video.
Grace.
Recorded three years earlier at the scholarship launch.
I had seen part of it.
Not all.
The camera continued after the formal event.
Grace sat with Ava at a table.
Ava looked thirteen.
Smaller.
Still wearing shoes that were slightly too big.
Grace asked:
“What do you want to do?”
Ava replied:
“Engineering.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
Ava looked confused.
Grace laughed.
“You’re thirteen. You’re allowed not to have a five-year strategic plan.”
I almost laughed too.
Grace had spent years telling me the same thing.
Then young Ava said:
“My mom says schools like this aren’t built for people like us.”
Grace became serious.
“She may have reasons for believing that.”
“Do you?”
Grace thought.
“Some rooms are built to keep people out.”
Ava waited.
“But that doesn’t mean the room gets to decide who belongs in the world.”
I paused the video.
Sophie was beside me.
She asked:
“Did Mom know Ava?”
“Yes.”
“Did she like her?”
“I think so.”
Sophie leaned closer to the screen.
“Mom looks happy.”
My throat tightened.
“She was.”
Sophie said:
“She doesn’t look sick yet.”
“No.”
We watched the rest together.
Not scheduled grief.
Not therapist-approved memory time.
Just us.
When the video ended, Sophie cried.
So did I.
Then she asked:
“Can we watch another?”
So we did.
That night, I canceled a meeting.
No disaster followed.
The world kept turning.
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