The White House

Tell the event plainly, then the part most accounts leave out. Dates, names, and what the ground looked like that day.

Where were you standing? What did you hear first? What did you do in the minutes after?

An ancestor who fought, marched, worked, escaped, or watched from a window. How the story reached you.

What it feels like to visit now — the traffic, the quiet, the markers, the people leaving flowers.

The names missing, the numbers disputed, the part of the story that was inconvenient.

Anniversaries, reenactments, vigils, school trips, arguments about what to build here next.

Where to stand, what to read first, which corner is the real one, who to ask.