The stadium erupted in thunderous applause while my mother sat completely still in her cream blazer.

The marble floors of the stadium reception hall echoed with hundreds of overlapping voices, but my mother’s heels made a distinct, hurried pattern as she crossed the floor toward me.

Her cream blazer looked a little rumpled at the lapels, and her fingers twitched on the brass latch of her handbag as she stopped two feet away.

“Sarah, darling,” Eleanor said, her voice carrying a nervous lightness that sounded strange in the high-ceilinged room.

“That was quite a performance up on the podium.”