Another family meeting. How to say I wanted to be a therapist? Not a secretary, a teacher or a nurse. My fingers stumbled over braiding the fly-away strands of my auburn hair. It's surprising appearance the result of some recessive gene shared by my black-haired Irish father and Mutti's Gaulish ancestors.
And it was some family. Six of us, barely contained chaos bread by equal amounts of charm and pragmatism. Stemming from $25.00 spent on strudel over the six weeks it took Papa to woo Mutti out from behind the deli counter for coffee.
Looking at them both, flanked by my siblings. Anna giving me two thumbs up. My announcement flung out and now sprawled on the coffee table between us. Waiting for some response.
"What is this obsession you young people have with giving up family business to anyone who will listen?" Mutti's eyes were filled with real puzzlement, the faintest trace of her German birth lingering in her clipped consonants.
"Mutti, Cathy's Mum has shared some stories with me about her work at the hospital. And Dr. Hauer helped us so much with Anna. It just feels, right." Even at seventeen I knew it wouldn't be smart to tell them it was Winona in Girl, Interrupted that made me want to fix people's heads and hearts.
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