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“No, that’s closer to the football field, not the track stadium,” Damon said, referring to the famous Word of Life mosaic mural on the exterior of the Hesburgh Library, depicting Jesus and His followers.

“He sees,” my grandmother said. “Jannie gonna.”

“Amen to that,” Bree said and squeezed my hand.

“We’ll see, Nana,” I said, looking over my shoulder at her. “She made the finals by the skin of her teeth.”

Jannie had not run her best in the prelims. She’d pulled through to the final based on time; hers was one of the two fastest behind the six athletes who’d gone one, two, and three in the two qualifying heats.

“The heats don’t count,” my father announced. “This is the one that counts.”

Ali shouted, “There she is!”

We saw Jannie come out of a tunnel in sweats and begin lightly jogging around the track. I had binoculars and could see her clearly.

“How’s she look?” Bree asked.

“That’s her game face,” I said. “She’s come to play.”

“Nah,” Damon said. “I know my little sister. She didn’t come to play. She came to win.”

“Amen to that,” Juanita said emphatically, and we all laughed, especially Nana.

Jannie jogged almost all the way around the track, then went onto the infield and performed the ballistic stretches she did before every race.

The other runners were doing the same around her, but through my binoculars, I watched only Jannie. She didn’t seem to be concerned about the fact that she was about to challenge some of the fastest female college athletes in the country.

I swung my binoculars and spotted Kim Granger, the junior from Stanford University with the top qualifying time. Granger had a scarily fast start and remarkable focus and stamina. She’d go out in lane four as the favorite.

Patricia McKnight, the second-fastest qualifier, was a redshirt senior from the University of Texas. Like Jannie, she had been one of the country’s top runners at the high-school level. McKnight had struggled early at the collegiate level but had come on strong in her final three years of eligibility.

Amelia Rogers had not qualified for the NCAA finals in her first two years at Clemson University, but since transferring to the University of Florida, she’d been on a steady rise, posting some of the fastest four-hundred-meter times in the country on a consistent basis. Rogers had lane three.

An announcer called the women’s four-hundred-meter finalists to the start. Jannie jogged over and stood at the rail twenty rows down in front of us.

She yelled, “Nana!”

My grandmother and all of us looked down. My daughter pointed at her chest, made a running pantomime with her arms, held up four fingers on her right hand, then pointed at Nana.

“What?” my grandmother said.

“‘I run for you,’” Ali shouted. “That’s what she’s saying, Nana! ‘I run for you’!”

“I see, I see,” Nana Mama said, tears on her cheeks as she waved at Jannie, who turned and jogged to her place in lane one.

The announcer ran through the finalists’ pedigrees. The athlete in lane six was a senior from Iowa State and the Big Twelve conference champion. The woman in lane two ran for Duke and was the Atlantic Coast Conference champion. The athlete in lane seven came from the University of Southern California and had won the Big Ten four-hundred-meter championship in a convincing fashion.

Jannie Cross was introduced as a US high-school record holder in the four-hundred-meter and the only athlete from a historically Black college running in the finals. We all cheered wildly.

But I knew one of my daughter’s biggest challenges was in lane eight—Addison Marks, the UConn junior who’d won the regional race where Jannie qualified for the final meet. Even though Marks had run a slightly slower qualifying time than my daughter, Jannie didn’t count her out.

“She’s been here twice,” Jannie had told me that morning over the phone. “And like you’ve said a bunch of times, never underestimate the value of experience.”

Even though I had indeed told my daughter about the value of experience on multiple occasions, and even though she was seemingly a lamb among lions, Jannie appeared unintimidated when they were called to their blocks.

I looked behind me and saw my dad, Alicia, Juanita, and Nana Mama leaning forward in their seats. My grandmother looked at me, her eyes shining and bright.

“This it!” she said. “Exciting!”