I took a lonely 78-year-old Vietnam veteran to my senior prom because he’d never attended his own — when grandma saw my date, she went pale.
“Ma’am, have we met?”
Gran didn’t answer.
She turned, walked straight down the hallway, and shut her bedroom door.
I looked at Walter.
“What just happened?”
“I was hoping you knew, Nikki.”
“What just happened?”
***
Five minutes later, Gran returned carrying an old wicker basket covered with a faded cloth.
She walked past me and stopped directly in front of Walter.
“I never broke my promise,” she said.
Walter gripped his cane.
“What promise?”
Gran pulled away the cloth. “My promise to my sister.”
“I never broke my promise.”
The moment Walter saw what was inside, he lowered himself into the nearest chair and covered his face.
That’s when I realized my senior prom had somehow opened a door that had been closed for more than 60 years.
***
A week earlier, Walter and I had been arguing about his phone.
Every Saturday, I volunteered at a nursing home near my house. I’d originally signed up because I needed community service hours before graduation.
I volunteered at a nursing home near my house.
He was 78, a Vietnam veteran, and almost always alone. He never complained about having no visitors. He just appeared in the lobby every Saturday with his phone on the table like an enemy he’d agreed to face one more time.
“Walter, you can’t close every app because it annoys you.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not how phones work.”
“It should be, Nikki. It would be much easier.”
“Because that’s not how phones work.”
I slid the phone back toward him.
“Show me the photo you couldn’t enlarge.”
I smiled and showed him how to pinch the screen.
While he practiced, I mentioned my senior prom was the following Saturday.
Walter glanced up.
“Big night.”
I slid the phone back toward him.
“I guess.”
“You don’t sound excited.”
“I don’t have a date.”
He returned his attention to the phone.
“Could be worse.”
“How?”
“I never went to mine.”
“I don’t have a date.”
That stopped me.
“You didn’t?”
Walter shook his head.
“I planned to. I even bought a tie. Then my military plans changed. Later, I ended up in Vietnam. By then, prom felt like something that belonged to another person’s life.”
There was no self-pity in his voice.
“You didn’t?”
That made it land harder.
I watched him shrink the photo he’d just enlarged.
Then I said, “Come to mine.”
Walter looked up.
“What?”
“My prom.”
“Nikki, I’m 78.”
“Come to mine.”
“I noticed.”
“People will stare and think you’re crazy.”
“I’m sure I’ll survive that.”
His mouth twitched.
I leaned forward.
“You never got to go. I don’t have a date. Come with me. But I’ll handle the technological stuff, okay?”
“I’m sure I’ll survive that.”
