The Lantern Room smelled of clay dust and oranges. Twelve students stood around the long center table. None wore a gown yet. On the walls hung unfinished canvases, stage flats, and the paper lanterns June had made from damaged sheet music. At the far end was an empty chair with her blue sewing tin on its seat. I had donated that tin during the hurried week when relatives packed anything that looked connected to school. I could barely touch it.

Mateo explained that June had kept index cards inside it. Each card named a task someone had promised to finish: revise Amari's scholarship essay, teach Priya to thread the old machine, return the borrowed camera, replace a missing button on Mateo's concert jacket. The students had completed most of the list together. Three cards remained. They wanted my permission to decide what happened to them.

I asked why permission mattered now. A tall girl named Rhea said June had been generous, but generosity did not make every object public. They had argued about displaying the cards in a memorial case. Mateo thought that would turn private promises into an exhibit. Others wanted to raise money under June's name. They had stopped when they realized nobody had asked what I knew she would want.

Their uncertainty disarmed me. Adults had arrived after the accident with finished plans: a tree, a plaque, a fund, a bench beside the athletics field June disliked. These students had brought me three worn cards and admitted they did not know. I sat in the empty chair because my knees were trembling. Beneath the sewing tin lay a fourth card facedown. Unlike the others, it was written in green ink. Mateo said they had found it that morning and had not read it after seeing my name on the back.