Your Father's Daughter

If You Asked Jack, he would probably tell you I ruined his graduation. I m eant to be on my best behavior. I did. But everything went wrong and I wouldn’t blam e anybody for thinking it was my fault. Jack’s graduation was a hard time. I had never seen Jack anywhere but in Virginia when he visited us on holidays and during the summer. I have always liked Jack. I liked him better than Stel, who is my whole sister. Someday I want to go to boarding school, so I can come hom e on holidays and be like Jack with everyone glad to see me and interested in my stories. Jack’s graduation was at noon. We had come all the way from Virginia to Connecticut the day before. We were dressed up. I wore a green dress with green buttons, which I liked fine until Mom brought out the same dress for Stel and m ade her wear it. I was nine and Stel was five; Dad said we looked like peas. Jack’s school was full o f leaves. Big leafy oak trees and flowering trees everywhere smelling o f rain. There were wide spaces o f lawn rolled up to brick buildings. There was a chapel with a white steeple. Men in light suits and ladies in cool, floaty dresses walked under the trees. Underneath a yellow and-white striped tent, a black m an was snapping tablecloths in the breeze. Someone was ringing the chapel bell. I felt like doing cartwheels over that lawn, bu t I figured my dress would fly over my head. We followed litde cardboard arrows from the parking lot to the library. Behind the library were rows o f folding m etal chairs and a platform with a m icrophone. A boy was saying, “Testing one, two, three. Can you hear m e?” And Stel shouted that yes, we could. We sat down in a middle row: Dad, Stel, M om and me on the end. Parents, brothers and sisters were filling up the rows, everyone talking at once. The folding m etal chairs were hot from being in the sun; I kept getting off mine to spy around. I saw ladies in Easter hats and ladies with lace gloves. I saw a m an with blond sideburns who had on a kilt skirt and a tassled plaid cap; he was carrying bagpipes. I yelled for Stel to look at the m an in the skirt and Mom told m e to keep my voice down.