“Professor Davies — I am writing this from my office at Harvard. I am a professor of English now. I teach a seminar on Toni Morrison every fall. I was in your AP Lit class in 2007. I was the one who refused to speak for the first two months. You did not call on me. You did not push. On the day we did "Sula," you slid a sticky note onto my desk that said, in your tiny careful printing, "I would like to hear what you think — only when you are ready." I am ready now, and I have been ready ever since. Every student I have ever taught, I have taught the way you taught me: I have waited for them. I have, for nineteen years, been quietly passing you on. Thank you, Professor.”
