Christine Hale

She wanted me to have it. She expected me to win it.

At five years old I didn’t care about winning. Already I hated competing. But my mother needed me to get that cup. She told me it should be mine. I’d never heard of this prize until she brought it up, but the moment she did, I wanted it bad. I needed desperately—it was a matter of life and death in those days and for a long time thereafter—to please her....