neglected-children

I am here because I worked too hard and too long not to be here. But although I told the university that I would walk across the stage to take my diploma, I won__. At age fifty-seven, I__ too damned old, and I__ look ridiculous in this crowd. From where I__ standing in the back of the hall, I can see that I am at least two decades older than most of the parents of these kids in their black caps and gowns. So I__l graduate with this class, but I won__ walk across the stage and collect my diploma with them; I__l have the school send it to my house. I only want to hear my name called. I__l imagine what the rest would have been like. When you__e had a life like mine, you learn to do that, to imagine the good things. The ceremony is about to begin. It__ a warm June day and a hallway of glass doors leading to the parking lot are open, the dignitaries march onto the stage, a janitor slams the doors shut, one after the other. That banging sound. It__ Christmas Day 1961 and three Waterbury cops are throwing their bulk against our sorely overmatched front door. They are wearing their long woolen blue coats and white gloves and they swear at the cold. They__e finally come for us, in the dead of night, to take us away, just as our mother said they would.