The Last Week

By the last week of college, Laura had begun to recognize the sound of an empty room. Her books were packed, the pictures were down, and each time she crossed the floor her footsteps seemed to arrive ahead of her. She had kept out two changes of clothes, a towel, and a coffee mug with a chipped handle. Everything else sat in boxes along the wall, labeled with the confidence of someone who believed she would remember what MISC meant in August.

The apartment building was emptying around her. Down the hall, a door stood open while two parents carried suitcases to a car. Someone had left a desk lamp beside the trash bins with a note saying WORKS. On Tuesday, Laura passed the building where she had taken her first college class and stopped at the sight of its locked doors. She could still remember hurrying through them, late and unsure where to sit. She had walked through them so often since that she had forgotten they could make her nervous.

She spent Wednesday helping a professor sort papers in his office. He was retiring that summer and had arranged his books in three piles: those he wanted to keep, those the department might take, and those he could not yet bring himself to put anywhere. Laura suspected the third pile would travel home with him.

He handed her a stack of student essays and asked her to place them in a box for shredding. Halfway down she found one of her own, written during her first year. She recognized the name before she recognized the argument. In the margin, the professor had written, You make a strong claim here. Can you show me how you arrived at it?

She held the page a moment longer than she needed to. At eighteen, she had thought the question meant she had failed to explain herself. Later she had learned it was the sort of question he wrote when he wanted a student to keep going.

“You can take that one,” he said, without looking up from the book in his hands.

“It isn’t very good.”

“Most first attempts aren’t.”

She folded the essay and slipped it into her bag. Before she left, he asked whether she had heard from the law schools. Laura told him about the acceptance letter. She had become practiced at saying which school it was and when she would need to reply.

He nodded. “That gives you something to consider.”

It was a relief to hear it put that way.

On Friday, she took a long walk across campus with no errand in mind. The grass had been cut for the graduation ceremony, and folding chairs stood in neat rows before the stage. Workers were testing a microphone. From the library steps she could see the path she had worn between classes, though she had rarely taken it slowly enough to notice the older trees along it. She went inside and returned one final book. When the librarian stamped the slip, Laura felt an unexpected desire to borrow something else.

Graduation morning was warm. Families filled the lawn well before the ceremony began, saving seats with jackets and programs. Laura joined the graduates in line and spent several minutes trying to settle a cap that seemed designed for a different head. Ellen, who had driven back from Portland for the day, spotted her and came over to straighten the tassel.

“How’s the sofa?” Laura asked.

“Still upstairs, last I heard. My father says I owe the building rent for it.”

They had time to laugh before the line began to move. Once seated, Laura could see Ellen several rows ahead. Beyond her were hundreds of dark gowns, bright flower arrangements, and faces turned toward the stage. The speeches were earnest, and one ran long enough for the sun to shift across Laura’s knees. Somewhere behind her, a small child asked in a clear voice when they were going to be done.

When Laura’s row stood, she rose with it. She had expected the walk to feel longer. Someone read her name; she crossed the stage, shook a hand, and received a folder that contained no diploma yet. At the far end, she turned toward the steps and caught sight of the lawn again. Her classmates were still waiting, the child was still restless, and a breeze had lifted the corner of a program from an empty chair.

Afterward, people found one another in the crowd. There were photographs to take, congratulations repeated over the noise, and promises to visit that some of them would keep. Laura held her cap against her hip while she talked. More than once she was asked what came next. She said she had been accepted to law school and was thinking it over. Most people seemed pleased with the answer. They wanted her to have somewhere to go, even if she could not yet tell them whether she would go there.

That evening she returned to the apartment for the last of her things. The chipped mug was still beside the sink. She washed it, dried it on her towel, and placed it in the top of a box. The folded essay went in beside it. Then she opened the drawer where she had put the acceptance letter.

She had read it enough times to know its careful language. This time she looked at the date by which she had to respond. There were weeks left, though fewer than there had been when the letter arrived. She set it on top of the books she would take with her and closed the drawer.

On her way out, she noticed that someone had taken the lamp from beside the trash bins. Its note remained on the pavement, held down by a pebble. Laura picked it up and put it in the bin, then carried her last box to the car.