When You Were Here

you get a haircut for your graduation.”
    “Yeah, oddly enough she doesn’t really control my hair.”
    “She thinks she controls everything,” Holland says, and rolls her eyes like she’s trying to invite me back into the teasing, to the way we make light of Kate and her tendencies. I say nothing, and Holland absently taps the silver chain on her neck that she wears every day. There’s a small circle hanging from it and the name SARAH is engraved on it. Sarah was Holland’s friend from college who died a few months into their freshman year. Then Holland says softly, “You always look so nice when you get your hair cut.”
    “Do you want me to get a haircut?” I want to kick myself the second the words come out.
    “Your hair looks great. So does the rest of your ensemble ,” she says, gesturing to my cap and robe . “Mom will approve too.” She catches herself. “Sorry. I meant my mom.”
    “It’s okay. I know what you mean.”
    “Do you miss her today?”
    “I miss her every day,” I say instantly, relieved that someone has asked, that someone wants to know.
    “Of course. That was stupid to ask.”
    “You can ask. You’re the only one who does,” I say, because after two months, the condolences are running out, and it’s as if my mom is being erased from the world again as the memory of her fades and we all start to forget. But Holland’s asking, Holland’s remembering, and I want to grab her and tell her, Everything hurts, and I can’t stand the hurting . Instead my hand lifts a few inches, like it has a mind of its own and wants to touch her, to connect with her through words and skin. But I don’t go that far. I can’t stand the hurting.
    “I miss her too. I miss planting flowers with her, and I miss going to the farmers’ market with her, and I miss looking at all those bulb catalogs with her,” Holland says, and my heart rises in my throat because Holland hasn’t forgotten either. She hasn’t forgotten a thing. “And now the cymbidium, the boat orchids in front of your house? The ones I planted with her last summer? They need to be trimmed.”
    “Yeah?”
    “She would have done that. She would have trimmed them around now.”
    I can see it so clearly. I can picture my mom outside the house, wearing jeans and a T-shirt because she was a jeans-and-a-T-shirt kind of mom, planting the orchids last summer,hoping she’d be here a year later to take care of them. Determined to be here a year later.
    “Right. She would have,” I say quietly, then I steer away from all this, from these cracks in my chest that feel too much like feelings. “I don’t see why I have to go to graduation, though. My mom was the one who liked all these ceremonies and crap.”
    Holland tilts her head to the side. “Do you want to skip it?”
    I scoff. “What? Are you serious?”
    “I am serious, Danny. If you want to skip graduation, I’ll cover for you.”
    The idea entices me. “What would you say?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll come up with something. I’ll pretend I’m you!”
    I laugh.
    “I mean it, though. If you need to escape or whatever, I’ll go out there right now and I’ll tell my mom you’re on your way, that you want to drive yourself. And we’ll go without you. And when they say your name, I’ll act like I have no idea where you are. Or I’ll get up and say you took the dog for a walk. Do you want me to?”
    “You would do that?”
    “Yes.”
    “You would really do that?”
    “I would really do that. I would do that for you.”
    She is serious. She will do this for me. I hate her for breaking me so many months ago, and I love her for wanting to cover for me today.
    But this isn’t about Holland, and this isn’t about me. “I should go. For my mom.”
    Holland nods. She knows this is what my mom was holding on for. Kate does too. Kate said it all the other day when I told her I didn’t want to go. Elizabeth loved ceremonies. Elizabeth loved events. This was the thing she was trying to live for. For the last five years, all she wanted was to make it to your graduation before she died. So get up there and give your valedictory speech so your mother, wherever she is, can hear you.
    Kate doesn’t believe in heaven or the afterlife. My mom didn’t either. We’re Jews, and Jews don’t subscribe to the typical heaven or hell ideas. Kate does believe my mom is somewhere, maybe in limbo, maybe in spirit, waiting for this moment. Why, then, didn’t she hang on? I wish