I remember thinking, in the confusion of it, that they must have planned this for weeks — that somewhere in the middle of finals and packing and the whole enormous business of finishing college, my three daughters had sat down together and decided to do this, and had gone to the dean and arranged it, and had kept it a secret from me through every phone call and every visit home, so that it would land on me exactly the way it was about to.

And it undid me a little further to realize that, because it meant this was not a feeling that had overtaken them in a sentimental moment.

It was a decision.

A deliberate, planned, chosen thing, carried out in secret over weeks, the way you plan something you are certain of.

My serious one, my fierce one, does not do things on impulse.

If Tess was standing on that stage, it was because the three of them had thought it through completely and meant every word of it.