“The final roster goes to the printer at six.”

By five o’clock, the shadow of the chapel tower stretched across the campus courtyard.

I sat alone on a stone bench overlooking the empty parade field and took a worn yellow legal pad out of my leather briefcase.

I turned past the top pages to the notes I had written six years earlier, late at night in my battalion office.

The top line had the exact figures from my grandmother’s trust account, including the twelve thousand dollars my parents had demanded I sign over to cover Derek’s credit card debts.