My mouth went dry, my NO wedged in my throat.
The lady glanced over at me, then said, “Oh, well then…” She turned away and dialed the phone. Mr. Jaynes’s deep, murmured voice drifted down the hall, answering the call. A minute later, Pearl was led into his office and the door closed behind her. When she came out, she flicked one glance at me as she passed. She was so tiny that we were almost eye-level with each other even though I was sitting down.
“You’re better than them, Boyce Wynn,” she whispered as she passed.
Pearl
Mama blinked at me as if she’d forgotten how to speak English. Here we go, I thought.
When she and Thomas had come home from Houston, I’d been out on the dock, staring across the shifting water at the closest sandbar across the channel and practicing my I’m-not-going-to-med-school speech. Not that those rehearsals curtailed the shock factor one bit, judging by her atypical muteness and the fact that her eyebrows had receded into the wisps of dark hair across her forehead.
When she found her voice, she said, “You’ve canceled your acceptance at Vanderbilt? As in—”
“As in I rejected the acceptance, yes.”
Her mouth hung open for a moment before she clapped it shut, jaw locked. “What about Harvard? Michigan?”
It was my turn to hesitate, perplexed. I’d just told her I had made the decision not to pursue a degree in medicine, which wasn’t specific to Vanderbilt or Harvard. In an effort to soften the blow, I’d added that I’d been accepted into the doctoral program in marine biology—which she was pretending she hadn’t heard. “Um. I was waitlisted at Harvard, Mama, I told you. Michigan also. But—”
“Columbia?”
I shifted on the sofa. “I turned it down.”
“Stanford?”
“Mitchell didn’t get into Stanford, remember? I turned it down last fall in favor of Vanderbilt.”
“Which you’ve just rejected.”
I nodded, sighing. “Yes, but the rejection, the waitlists—none of this is relevant to what I’m trying to tell you. Becoming a medical doctor isn’t what I want—”
“You are not throwing your future away, Pearl. I’ve worked too hard. You’ve worked too hard. You’ve never been afraid of any challenge—never in your life. Why now?”
She didn’t know me as well as she thought, or perhaps she just selectively overlooked anything that made me seem less than the perfect daughter. I’d faced down fear plenty of times—though fear had nothing to do with this decision. If anything, I feared departing from the expected plan to do something that felt right but at the same time recklessly impulsive. I feared disappointing her—which I was clearly doing.
“Mama, my choice isn’t about fear. This is about what I want to study, and how I want to live my life. This is about what’s important to me—”
“No.”
No? Oh boy. This was going even worse than I’d imagined. I stared at my lap, searching for the words to make her understand before this deteriorated into a total stalemate.
“Hello, Pearl—welcome home,” Thomas said. He was halfway across the parlor by the time he noticed the tension permeating the room. His smile faded. “What’s going on?”
“Your daughter doesn’t want to go to medical school.” Mama’s voice was clipped. Plus she made it sound like I had no plan for my future at all.
“Oh?” Thomas appeared more intrigued than concerned.
“I’ve been accepted into the doctoral program in marine biology. Here.”
Paused in the center of the room as though unsure whether he should stay or retreat, he glanced from my face to hers and back. “That’s… interesting. What made you change your mind?”
“She is not changing her mind!” Mama interjected, as if nothing I’d said could breach her denial. “She’s still on the waitlist at Harvard. She could hear from them any day.”
“Mama, it doesn’t matter—”
“What we’ve worked for all your life doesn’t matter? What your father sacrificed his life for doesn’t matter?”
I sucked in a breath, feeling the mention of my father like a blow to the chest. She’d told me their story—my story—once, in halting, hushed sentences, but she’d never cited his name as an inducement or reproach. Of course, she’d never felt the need. Until now.
“Essie…,” Thomas began.
She said no more, her lips pressed into a taut line.
My parents—young, in love, and pregnant, had run to escape a Mexican drug cartel defended by a gang he’d become involved with—leaving everything and everyone they’d ever known—to see me born in the US. To make a new life for the three of us. To give me opportunities they’d never had and a future safe from the violence under which they’d come of age. My father, not quite twenty, had fallen ill and died during the crossing in an overheated, airless truck; my teenaged mother had braved the loss of the boy she adored and separation from family and friends, and I’d been born on US soil—their first dream for me.
Mama cleaned motel rooms and houses while teaching herself to speak and write English flawlessly and attaining her citizenship. My earliest memories were not playdates or preschools, but libraries where helpful librarians kept me entertained with stacks of books and educational videos while my mother mastered computer skills. Her ambition paid off, and she eventually became the office manager of a busy pediatric practice. A few years later, she met Dr. Thomas Frank, whom she held at arm’s length until she was sure he understood and accepted her priority: me.