Her mother was waiting at the bottom of the stage steps.Not Susie, not Adrian, not Julian. Her mother, with her coat still on and the particular expression she wore when she was feeling something she hadn't fully decided how to say yet.Lena came down the steps.Her mother looked at her."The third-year part", her mother said."Yes," Lena said."When you said you spent your lunch breaks in the library because you didn't know where to sit.""Yes."Her mother looked at the certificate in Lena's hand."I want you to know," her mother said, quietly, in the specific way she said the things she'd been thinking about for a while, "that I know I gave you a life that was smaller than you deserved. Not on purpose. Because I was doing the best I could and the best I could, at the time, was a small flat and a good school and the correct value of a library." She paused. "But I've always known you were too large for it."Lena stared at her."Mum," she said."The scholarship," her mother said. "Whe
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