These Words that Describe Melissa

"Kind"

I was always a little bit scared when Melissa got anywhere near the limelight. You could never be entirely sure what she was going to do with it. And today we were graduating, class of 09. The assembly hall was crammed with parents, aunts and uncles, with us impatient graduands, just wanting to get out of there, get on with life, live our summer, and then start focusing on that whole rest-of-our-lives lark.

Melissa's family were there. They were animated statues. They were the colour of warmed marble, smooth, flowing. She with a red dress, white-belted, with some facsimile or other of flowers in her hair. He in a grey suit, a purple shirt sitting under it, a light, chequered scarf around his neck.

Dad was a few rows back. He tried to fill two seats – metaphorically, of course: his own, and the mother I didn't have. I'd half wondered: would she call. This day. One of the big ones right...?

He'd shaken his head.

"Are you sure?"

"It's been most of your life, Alex. I'm sorry."

"Fine. Screw her then." It was one part bravado against nine parts sincerity. Way, way too long; far too many years. I was long since adjusted.

And him: "Too right!" Which was maybe not the technically appropriate response.

"Do good out there," he said, meaning more than just today.

And Melissa: well, I almost fell over.

"What?"

She'd taken pink ribbons literally. Her dress being a delicate pink-rose; the actual ribbons, encased in white lace, being settle all around her hair. It was neatly pulled back. "Since when has this been you?"

"Just today."

I glanced back toward her parents, a wry grimace of sympathy.

Melissa just shrugged. "Once in a lifetime offer. Twice or three times at most."
But there she was. She walked across the stage, took her certificate, shook the hand of teacher she once told me she'd almost spat at. Smiled. Walked smartly to the other side.

They were in the audience. There were too many lights and camera flashes to be able to pinpoint them exactly. And they must have been pleased, maybe proud, maybe relieved. This moment they'd waited for, twice coming, once quashed. And she was their angel for the day. She kept her smile sweet, hands clasped. She briefly morphed into that creature they'd been trying all her life to turn her into.

I thought: that's more than they've got coming. And I thought that she was kind, she was generous beyond all expectation, an object lesson in selflessness...