The applause seemed to go on forever.
Jane stood beneath the bright stage lights, one hand still resting against the podium, while hundreds of people rose from their seats around me.
Professors.
Students.
Parents.
People I had never met.
They were all clapping for my daughter.
But somehow, when Jane looked down at me, it felt like there were only two people in that enormous auditorium.
Her and me.
For fifteen years, that had been enough.
I pressed a tissue beneath my eyes, laughing softly through my tears as the woman beside me squeezed my shoulder.
“You must be so proud,” she whispered.
I nodded because I couldn’t trust myself to speak.
Proud wasn’t a big enough word.
I was proud of the little girl who used to sit at our kitchen table coloring while I calculated which bill could wait another week.
I was proud of the teenager who never asked why her classmates had vacations and new phones while she had thrift-store jackets and a mother who was always tired.
