She said: you were always so determined.
I said: I don’t know that I seemed determined.
She said: you survived, didn’t you?
She said it plainly.
She said: that took determination.
I said: yes.
I said: it took a lot of things.
We talked for a while.
Margot had become a teacher.
Middle school English.
She said: so I spend my
days with twelve-year-olds.
She said: I never thought I would.
She said: but someone should be in the rooms with them when it’s hard.
She said it with the specific quality of a person who has a reason for doing what they do.
I understood that completely.
Other people came over.
Not all of them.
But some.
The ones who had been in the hallway but not the thing.
The witnesses.
The ones who had done nothing but also done nothing.
They came over now.
I do not think it was entirely guilt.
