I tried to count them later. I’ve been told it was forty three.
People in the audience had turned all the way around in their seats. Whispers ran up and down the rows. What’s going on. Is there an emergency. Is someone in trouble.
Principal Whitfield was halfway down the side aisle, staring.
And not one of the officers said a word.
They just stood there, along the walls, with their hats in their hands. And every single one of them was looking at the stage.
At my son.
On the stage, Caleb was standing completely still, with his hand flat against the strings to stop them ringing. He was staring at the back of the gym. His face was white.
Then I watched it change.
I watched him find Ray. I watched him look at the line of blue that wrapped around the gym. And I watched my son, who hadn’t cried at his father’s funeral, or at the cemetery, or on the stairs in his little black suit, or in three long years since, start to shake.
