He went home. He opened his textbooks. He got back to work. He graduated on a Saturday morning in May.
The ceremony was in the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center. Hundreds of people. The smell of new suits and other people’s perfume and the particular electricity of people who have worked hard for something and are about to receive proof of it.
Eugene sat in the third row of graduates and waited for his name. He thought about Renee.
He had not called her yet. He was not ready. He wanted to have more to show first, not to impress her, to deserve her trust.
There is a difference between those two things. And he had learned it the hard way.
He thought about Immani somewhere in the city growing up without knowing he existed. He thought about Samantha.
He thought, “I did something. I hope you can see it.” His name was called.
He walked across the stage. He took the diploma. He held it in his lap.
When he sat back down and looked at it for a long time. 61 years old, his second degree.
He had lost everything and come back through the front door with his hands clean and his mind intact.
Holt Financial Solutions opened on the 1st of September. A small office on Woodward Avenue, three rooms, a glass door with his name in black letters, three employees, two recent graduates from the Wayne State Network, and a woman named Carol who had 30 years in accounting and wanted to work somewhere that actually helped people instead of just processing their paperwork.
