Four empty chairs in the second row of that auditorium changed the entire direction of my life, and I did not even know it at the time. I kept staring at those chairs the way a person stares at a door they know will never open. Waiting anyway. Hoping anyway. Feeling stupid for hoping.
My name is Marlo Prescott. I was twenty nine years old on the day I walked across that stage at Stanford to accept my second master’s degree, and every single person around me had a family cheering their name except me. I had reserved four seats. One for my father. One for my mother. One for my younger sister Camille. And one for my grandmother, who had passed away two years earlier, because sentimental habits die slow. I paid extra for those tickets. I mailed them three weeks in advance. I called my mother the night
