We were discussing the college
admissions scandals.
She couldn’t understand what would
drive the wealthy
to such lengths, falsifying records or
emancipating your child
to obtain unneeded financial aid.
Dreams, I said, are fragile things
to try to keep intact. How the
Disability Services Office at Harvard
occupied a secluded corner of the
Administrations building,
the size of a janitor’s closet. The
office too small to fit us,
someone came out to meet my dad and me
for a dormitory tour.
One had no ramp outside, so after
ascending the stairs
into the building, we greeted two
Freshman studying in the box
window seat of their first-floor room
overlooking the Charles River,
like two Hollywood extras from Rob
Lowe’s Oxford Blues.
No elevator in the building, laundry
room in the basement.
But really, all you do at Harvard is
study anyway, the guide
giggled.
Embarrassed, she took us across the
river to another dorm,
which had an exterior ramp, but a
sunken vestibule with no
ramp, no elevator. The tour guide went
looking for assistance.
A young resident emerged, said, Yes, I know,
every time
my grandma visits, she can’t come up.
Trapped, waiting
in a vestibule, I’ve never seen my dad
sadder, more resigned,
more disappointed. Every parent wants
their child’s life to be better,
smoother, wants doors gone, or opened
more easily, something
my father could not gift me. Fraud is
wrong, cheating, wrong.
Other doors I have opened or broken
down. My pedigree
has served without Harvard’s name, as
will the resumes
of the children of the unscrupulous
wealthy.
Still, there has never been a don’t belong,
forbidden sign as clear,
never been a lingering what if as
much as that trip etched
in my memory, my dreams, how you are
just about to knock, hopeful;
your other hand reaching for the knob,
for admittance,
until you realize that being an
unimagined possibility
leaves you no space, no room to enter.
