By the time the announcer called Eli and Owen forward, the auditorium had stopped treating them like two quiet boys in plain jackets.
I watched both of my sons walk toward the stage while a giant scoreboard glowed behind them. Eli had finished first in the advanced science division. Owen had taken the highest score in mathematics. The results were close enough that the judges had spent nearly twenty minutes verifying the final rankings before posting them.
Two first-place finishes.
Two gold medals.
I had spent the morning trying not to look toward the section where Daniel, Vanessa, and Mason were sitting. Now I did.
Daniel wasn’t angry anymore.
He looked stunned.
Vanessa had gone completely still beside him.
And Mason, who had spent most of the morning focused on his own competition materials, was leaning forward with his eyes fixed on my sons.
The first medal went
