This time Chloe was presenting graduate research and Sophie was speaking about an environmental health partnership.

They had invited Marianne, their teachers, Penelope, and me.

I sat in the third row, holding an ordinary program.

There were no reserved sponsor sections, no velvet barriers, no advisers whispering about optics.

Around me families shifted in their chairs and searched the stage for familiar faces.

When Chloe began speaking, I recognized the steady voice she had used to question me in the botanical garden.

When Sophie took the microphone, she made the audience laugh with a story about a failed prototype and the peach her sister had once stolen.