Page 73 of Given Our History

I sputter a laugh, but she’s not even smiling.

“Seriously,” she says. “They don’t know what they’re missing out on. You’re pretty much the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

My gaze snaps to hers. She just shakes her head at me, her jaw set, like she really believes what she’s saying. It makes me feel a little less numb, maybe. I’m tempted to hug her, but I’m not sure how that would go over.

“They also invited me to apply for an associate professor position,” I say. “It’s not tenure, but it’s still a step up.”

She rolls her eyes—now that’s a Reagan face I’m much more familiar with. I press my lips together.

“You’re not going to apply,” she says, disbelieving.

I don’t say anything.

“Nope,” she says. “No way. You give them the middle finger. There’s literally no other option.”

It’s a little melodramatic, all things considered—the advisory board hasn’t directly insulted me. Or maybe they have, but c’est la vie, because when you’re a young woman in academia, there’s bound to be some old guy lurking around the next office over, looking for an excuse to call you incompetent. Inexperienced. Whatever.

I lift my shoulders and let them drop. “I don’t know.”

“What does Teddy think?”

“We haven’t really talked about it.”

She sets her mug on the counter. “Well, why not?”

“Because it’s my decision,” I say, though even to my own ears, it sounds like a half-hearted excuse. “And whatever he does is his.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” She tosses up her hands. “It’s like you’re determined to waste your whole life sitting in the fig tree.”

I blink at her. “The what?”

“It’s from Plath.” When I just give her a blank look, she prompts, “The Bell Jar? It’s a metaphor. Your life is split off in all these different branches. Work. Family. Love.” She places extra emphasis on this last word, like she feels the need to make sure I understand she’s talking about my relationship and not my job. I glower. “You convince yourself that you have to choose just one, only one fig, but you can’t decide which branch to pluck from, and you take so long to make up your mind that you never reach for any of them, and they all start to go bad, and at the end of the day you’re left with nothing because you were too scared to choose.”

She’s rambling now. Not unlike the way I sometimes ramble, like when I’ve bottled something up for so long it just comes spilling out, and once it starts, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

Yup. It’s word vomit.

“Except for you”—she flings a hand at me, her voice pitching up—“you’re convinced you’ve already picked your fig and you’re just going let all the other ones rot. Perfectly good figs!” She finishes her rant with an emphatic swing of her arm.

“I’m trying to think about what’s best for everyone,” I snap. “Including you.”

She scrunches her whole face in a frown, incredulous. “What does this have to do with me?”

“Your tuition. The student loans. If I’d accepted an offer of tenure, the school would’ve covered half the cost. But a promotion, that’s almost as good. I’ll just have to help you out of my own pocket.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t need you to make this decision because of me,” she says. I don’t think she realizes, and I’m not about to be the one to point it out, but she sounds like me. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“So you’re going to make a poor financial decision because of your stubborn—”

“Stop mothering me!” she explodes. “I’m not a child and you’re not Mom.” For a moment, I’m stunned into silence, and she takes advantage of it. “Ever since Dad’s injury, it’s like you decided that it’s your life’s purpose to do better than they did, like you can fix it—”

I find my voice, but she continues talking right over me, both of us half shouting. “I wouldn’t have to mother you if you didn’t act like—”

“—already applied for a scholarship, so I don’t need your stupid money—”