“Gavin?”
“Sometimes.”
“Are you still angry?”
Margaret considered.
“At him?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Adrian seemed surprised.
“That easily?”
“It was not easy.”
She adjusted the blanket over her knees.
“I stopped being angry because I got tired of giving him free housing in my head.”
Adrian laughed.
Margaret smiled.
“That doesn’t mean I decided he did nothing wrong.”
“I know.”
“Forgiveness and revision are different things.”
She looked toward him.
“You academics should write that down.”
“I’m writing it down mentally.”
“That’s where you lose everything.”
He laughed again.
Margaret looked toward a photograph on the bookshelf.
It showed her at twenty-six in her cafeteria uniform.
The same image Adrian had used at the gala.
For years she hated it.
Now she liked it.
Not because she enjoyed nostalgia.
Because she no longer saw a woman who belonged to the back of the building.
She saw a woman at work.
That distinction had taken decades.
Chapter 13: The Last Gala
Margaret attended one final Founders Gala when she was eighty-seven.
Adrian had announced his retirement.
The university was naming a new scholarship cohort.
She complained about having to wear formal clothes.
Adrian told her she could wear whatever she wanted.
She chose the same blue cardigan.
He recognized it immediately.
“You cannot be serious.”
“It’s comfortable.”
“That cardigan has become institutional history.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
He laughed.
This time, they arrived together.
The university car stopped at Bellweather Hall’s main entrance.
Margaret looked toward the South Courtyard.
Adrian noticed.
“Do you want to go that way?”
She thought for a moment.
“No.”
Not because the entrance embarrassed her.
Not because she wanted the front door to prove something.
She simply had no reason to take the longer route.
Adrian offered his arm.
She accepted.
Inside, hundreds of guests stood beneath the same chandeliers.
Different donors.
Different trustees.
Many different students.
The building remained familiar.
At dinner, Adrian gave his final gala speech as Chancellor.
He thanked faculty.
Staff.
Trustees.
Students.
Alumni.
He thanked his mother last.
Margaret shook her head before he even began.
“When I first became Chancellor, people kept asking what it felt like to lead the university where my mother once worked in food service.”
He looked toward her.
“For years I gave polished answers.”
The audience smiled.
“I talked about opportunity.”
“Education.”
“Generational progress.”