"Who was that?" Mia asked.
"Dara's coach," Connie said. "Drove up from Meridian. She wanted to tell me she's going to have a conversation with Dara about what this competition was set up to be." A pause. "Dara's not happy about being used as a prop. She thought she was invited to a legitimate event."
"She was competing legitimately," Mia said. "That part was real."
"Her coach knows that. Dara will know it too, when she's had time to think it through." Connie paused. "She came to find me after the match. Did you see?"
"No," Mia said. "I didn't."
"She wanted to know if I was Connie Callahan." Something moved in Connie's voice. Quiet and deep. "She said she started competing because of a match Sandra won in this gym."
Mia had heard Dara say this on the mat. Hearing it from Connie was different. She felt it land in a different part of her chest.
"Mom never knew," Mia said. "She never knew she had that kind of reach."
"Sandra didn't compete to have reach," Connie said. "She competed because it was true. Because it was hers." She looked at Mia directly. "Same reason you did today."
Mia was quiet for a moment.
"I felt her," Mia said. It came out smaller than she intended. "Not like a ghost. Not anything strange. Just... I could feel where she would have been. The seat she would have taken. What she would have said after the second round."
Connie went very still.
"She would have said my footwork was still sloppy on the right side," Mia said. "And then she would have said she was proud of me. Critique first. Always critique first. Because she believed in telling the truth before the love. That way you could take both of them seriously."
Connie made a sound. Very small. Something that had lived inside her for a long time.
She reached into the canvas bag on her shoulder and took out something small. She held it out to Mia.
Another navy ribbon. Identical in color. Identical in width. But new. Unworn. Without the seven months of daily use that the other one carried.
Mia looked from the worn ribbon in her left hand to the new one in Connie's palm.
Two ribbons.
"I bought it 3 years ago," Connie said. "When Sandra first told me she might drive down someday to watch you compete, I bought two. One for her to use when she did your hair before the match, the way she always planned to..." She stopped. Started again. "She never got to use it. So I kept the other one."