On the day I leave my residency, I call my parents.
For a few seconds, neither of them says anything. Then they want to book flights to Seattle immediately.
“Let’s slow down and talk,” Dad says.
“We can help you figure out what’s happening,” Mom tells me. “Please don’t make another decision before we get there.”
They have never come to see me. Not once.
I used to think that if I worked hard enough, I could earn their pride and affection. It hasn’t made us closer. Maybe it has helped keep us apart. I kept offering them the version of me they already understood, and never gave them much else to know.
“I’ve decided,” I say. “I withdrew. I’ll pay the rest of my loans myself. You don’t need to take that on.”
Mom starts crying. “I don’t understand. How did this happen?”
“It feels like it came out of nowhere,” Dad says.
“It didn’t. I’ve been working toward this decision for years. I already have another job.”
“What kind?” Mom asks.
“I’m going to work at a pottery studio.”
“Pottery?” Dad says. He sounds as if I’ve told him I plan to invest our savings in a scheme involving exotic pets.
“You don’t even make pottery,” Mom says.
“I do. I’m not good at it yet, and I know it won’t make a dazzling Christmas-card update. But it’s how I want to spend my time now.”
“Why spend your time on something you’re bad at?” Dad asks.
“Because I enjoy it. That matters to me.”
“Maybe you need to rest for a while,” Mom says.
“I want a life that isn’t all work. Surgery matters to me, but not enough to make it my whole life. I want mornings when I can sleep in, late nights with my friends, and trips I don’t have to squeeze around a shift. I want the energy to make my apartment feel like mine and to try things I haven’t done before. I can’t do any of that when I’m this tired. I know you’re disappointed. I’m still the one who has to choose.”
“Mara, this is a mistake,” Mom says. “You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Maybe I will. If I do, I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your responsibility.”
“Don’t rush,” Dad says. “We can come out and help you sort through this.”
“Not today.”
“We’re your parents!” Mom cries.
“I know. I want you to visit in a couple of weeks. But I’m not changing my mind, and there’s no point flying to Seattle right now. I’m not there.”
“What does that mean? Where are you?”
A voice over the airport speakers announces that my gate has changed.
“I’m at O’Hare. I need to board, but I’ll call after I land.”
“Where are you landing?” Mom asks. Her voice rises; I have never heard her sound quite like this.
“Home,” I say. “I’m going back to the coast.”
Neither of them answers.
“I love you both,” I tell them. The words feel unfamiliar because I have left them unsaid for too long, not because they aren’t true. “I’ll call tonight.”
I end the call and pull my bags toward the new gate. I stop for an iced coffee and a cinnamon roll, then settle into a chair with cracked upholstery. My phone lights up. I expect a lecture or an attempt to talk me out of everything.
It’s Nadia. We’ve never been sisters who text just to chat.
Mom called me, freaking out, she writes.
Sorry. I hope it wasn’t too much, I reply.
The typing dots appear, then vanish. I go back to breaking the cinnamon roll into small pieces.
Her next message arrives: UR not responsible for Mom’s feelings. At least that’s what my therapist says. I just wanted to check in bc she thinks UR having some kind of breakdown. R U?
Nadia writes in full sentences and uses punctuation, but still abbreviates “are” and “you.” That may be the least surprising thing in the message.
I had no idea she was seeing a therapist. Then again, I know very little about Nadia. We have never talked this frankly. Her checking on me means more than I expect.
Maybe it is a breakdown, I type. But I don’t think I ever wanted to be a surgeon. I liked making people proud. And I liked the money.
Shit! she replies.
Then the screen stays quiet. Maybe our late-starting sister conversation is over. Ten minutes pass before she writes again.
I should tell U I resented U, bc I thought U were just like them and they always liked U more. I get now how much pressure U were under. Maybe if we’d acted like sisters sooner, things could’ve been different. This might not mean much, but I’m proud of U. Mom will get over it. She got over my bellybutton ring.
Really? I send.
She never said anything, Nadia replies, but she stopped staring at my stomach and sighing. This will be easier than that. I’ve got UR back.
I lean against the counter and read it again. Thanks, I write. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more. I wish I had been.
Don’t worry about it. U were a kid. Neither of us got much say in our lives. Now we do. UR doing what’s right for U. That’s all you can do.
I have never cried over a message with this many abbreviations. I want to print it and keep it on the Callahan family fridge. We don’t have matching Halloween photos from childhood, but we love each other. We can still become closer if I try.
• • •
Dad is the first to soften. He sends me articles about how pottery can help with stress, then a link to a new ceramics competition on television.
Mom needs more time.
When my parents finally fly out to visit us on the Washington coast, Mom says little for most of the day. I take them antiquing and then on a beginner horseback ride. Later, we get drinks at a bar decorated to look like “hunting, but fancy,” a place that leans into local style for the summer visitors.
At the table, Irene—Rhys’s mother—smiles as the server walks away. “Hank hated this place. He never wanted to come, so I’d bring our neighbor Beth Anne instead.”
My parents also come to one of the beginner pottery classes I’ve started helping with. Dad makes an effort to look interested. Mom manages not to cry.
Afterward, I show them some pieces I’ve made recently. Mom spends a long time looking at a bowl covered in several shades of blue.
“This one’s nice,” she says.
“Thanks. I made it for Livia and Dane.”
“Your friends who just got married?” Dad asks.
“The lawyers,” Mom reminds him.
I wonder again if my friends were the only people I pushed away. Every time I steered our conversations toward the part of me I knew my parents admired, I may have kept them from seeing the rest.
Some of the visit is enjoyable; some of it is painfully awkward. Then it ends. A yellow cab pulls into the Callahans’ driveway, and Rhys gives my parents and me space to say goodbye alone.
I step in to hug them before remembering that my family rarely does that. I am already committed, so Dad and I hold each other stiffly for a moment. Mom and I do the same.
Dad gets into the cab. Mom follows, then turns back, her shoes crunching over the gravel.
“It was never about the Christmas card, Mara,” she says. “You have to understand that.”
My nose stings. The feeling makes me want to get away, but I stay.
“I gave everything up,” she says, her voice low.
“I know. You gave so much up for us. I understand what it cost you, and I’m sorry—”
“Mara. No.” She takes my elbow. “That’s not what I mean. I gave everything up for your father. He wanted to keep working. He wanted to move to Michigan. I thought that if he was happy, it would be enough for me. It wasn’t. I’m not ashamed of you. I’m afraid you’ll wake up one day and realize you built your life around someone else and left no room for yourself. It was never about a Christmas card. I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” I say. “I didn’t come here for Rhys. I came because I wanted to. I don’t know exactly how things will turn out, but I know what I want now.”
Tears gather in her eyes. She makes herself smile and brushes my hair behind my ear.
“I’m always going to worry about you.”
“Could you set a limit? Maybe twenty minutes a day. I’m okay. If I’m not, I’ll tell you.”
She touches my hair. “Will you?”
“If you want me to.”
She nods. “I love you.”
“I know. I love you too.”
She nods again, then climbs in beside Dad.
I wave as the cab leaves. The screen door opens behind me. I catch the scent of pine on Rhys’s clothes before his arms come around me, and I lean back against him. His hair is short now and his beard is gone; his stubble brushes my temple before he kisses me.
We stay there, listening to an owl in the distance as the taillights disappear.
“Hungry?” he asks.
“Very.”