“Well,” she said after an eternity, her voice shaking. “Well.” A long, shuddering breath. “You know, Rashid. You’re my boy too. You couldn’t do anything that would make me ashamed of you. I wish … Your daddy and I … it’s just been so hard. But I know you wouldn’t do anything to make us ashamed. I don’t know why we thought you would.” She was silent again. Then, as if to herself, “We got nothing to be ashamed of.” A whisper.

Rashid’s eyes were full of tears, but he did not let them fall. He was grateful for the old-fashioned door on the phone room. He wrapped the phone cord around and around his finger.

“Don’t you miss him, Mama?”

“Every day, son. Every day”

“Me too.”

“Well, we all really loved him.” She paused. “But I’ve been thinking that we’ve got to take better care of what’s left. That matters, too. So I’m going to try to do that. You try too.”

“I will, Mama.” Silence. “Do you want to know what I said, Mama? I could send you a copy of the speech. It … it’s too hard to say over the phone.”

Her voice over the wires was ragged but strong. “I’d love that. And so would your daddy. Don’t you call us this Sunday. We’ll call you. All right?” She laughed a little. “We’ve started going back to church. It helps a little. And here I am planning to call you twice in one week. Looks like I might be trying to get myself together after all—” Her voice broke off in a sob. “I’ll talk to you real soon, baby. Real soon.”

Rashid sat in the phone room for he didn’t know how long. Till his eyes were dry. He swallowed a few times, then got up and went back to his work. There was still so much to do.

The next day, Mr. Fox approached him in the hall. He was walking to Latin class, his head down, his mind blank, when he heard his name called. “Mr. Bryson, I’d like to speak with you for a moment.”

He looked up, startled. Was he going to get yelled at about his speech?

“Yes?” He resisted the impulse to start shifting from foot to foot, but just barely.

“Mr. Bryson, we’re starting a program of outreach into some of the city schools, and we are recruiting some students to join some of our faculty on speaking visits to some of them. I was impressed by your ease in front of a crowd during your chapel talk and so I thought you’d do a fine job on such a trip. The trip needn’t—and shouldn’t—interfere too drastically with your schoolwork.”

“What would I have to do?”