She had positioned herself in the far corner, near the stacked gym mats. She looked impossibly small, a fragile porcelain doll left on a shelf. Her tiny hands were white-knuckled as they twisted the delicate fabric of her skirt, ruining the press I had ironed in that morning. Her eyes, usually bright with mischief, were wide and glassy, scanning the crowd with a frantic, rhythmic precision. Left to right. Left to right. Searching.

“He might come, Mommy,” she had whispered to me over her cereal that morning, her voice trembling with the stubborn, illogical faith of a child. “I know he’s in Heaven. But maybe… maybe for the dance, God gives passes? Like a hall pass?”