“Come on, , you have to stay,” Mom begs as I wince in front of the delicious buffet she and my sister made.

  It’s not that I want to go out. Or that I want to avoid this whole farce of a soirée they decide to do each year. I need to be anywhere other than here. I’ve explained already. I’ve gone to the very specific as to why this is just irrelevant and inappropriate and how I just don’t want to be a part of it. I’m tired of repeating myself. Can she just understand how hurtful it is? How sad it is to be celebrating an end rather than a beginning? Among all the events we could be honoring, this is not the one. I jolt when I realize I scratched the little skin next to my nail to the blood and I put my finger in my mouth. This gives me a few more seconds to come up with a tangible excuse.

  My mother slaps my arm and exclaims with her pretty Slavic accent, “I hate it when you do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Look at me with your big brown eyes and hope I’ll get tired enough to wait for an answer.” She turns to my sister and gives her a black glance before she could grab some Lok?e. My favorite. My stomach gurgles.

  “It’s hazel.”

  “What?” she spits, walking closer to the fridge. Elena, who managed to grab a piece of instead, throws at me her puppy eyes. I tend to be very weak when she does this. But I must stay strong.

  “The color of my eyes. It’s hazel.” Her stare could possibly kill matter. Dissect molecules. Bombard atoms. “Same as yours.”

  “Katarina, love, let him go if he prefers.”

  My father enters the room with his usual suffocating presence. His bushy eyebrows and very dark hair only heighten the sharpness of his features. Which I inherited. Even his large hands and bones. Only the eyes and nose I got from my mom. And I couldn’t be prouder.

  He comes to face me, at least one head shorter than I am and watches me like I’m the stain on his shirt. “You are just wasting everyone’s time. Make a decision.”

  I wish I could.

  Spending precious moments with my family is one of the best ways I could waste my time. My mother and my sister are the most important people on earth for me, and despite his current unloving attitude, I know my father only hopes the best for myself and my future. Maybe a bit too much about my future and a bit less about me. For example, I have no recollection of my father asking if I was okay. Worse even, if I was happy. This is not a subject Stefan enjoys elaborating about. He would rather hear me say that I had a raise. That my research director, Isabella, finally granted me a position in her research lab, that I finished my next publication which has been sitting on my computer for the last six months. Yes, these are the successes my father wishes for me. And I wish them for myself too. Of course. I just don’t see them happening in the near future. “Have you lost your tongue?”

  Stefan shows the table with the fuming and deliciously smelling plates and my love for food takes the better of me. I sit at one of the chairs (my chair, the one that I have since I’m able to sit on chairs (the one that I begged and cried and supplicated to bring to the US)) and I dive in.

  This isn’t a catharsis I have to purge each and every year but this exact moment has been a reason for multiple disputes we had. They don’t understand how I’m feeling, I don’t understand how they don’t understand how I’m feeling and then I’m twelve all over again and I try to explain to them that this loss deeply affected me. I blame the US. I blame my father for deciding to change continents when the timing was probably the worst. I blame myself for being healthy and having to watch another piece of my own disappear into the meanders of non-existence. I blame whoever I need to blame to feel just lighter enough to wake up every morning and not sob at the acknowledgment.

  I’m thirty-two years old. Many——years have passed and yet, it’s like a part of my heart has been trashed and burned. Like a void has taken place in the hollow of my core and my motivation has fallen into it as well.

  Science was just the tip of the iceberg and when I entered Tufts University with my Ph.D. in my pocket, and my new position as a professor, I really thought it would be not long until I’m a researcher. Fully working on a lab, day and night, using all of my perspiration and sweat and blood and tears into the discovery of a cure. Of something. Anything really. Just a small step that would mean so much to me. And my family. But here we are. Three years later. No advancement. My future publication is nowhere near being finished nor published and I’ve been excused from labs because “no grants are currently available nor positions ceded but Mr. (Professor! Doctor!) Miller (Mlynar!), we will contact you the moment we are aware of any changes”. Not to forget, the classes I have to teach drain every ounce of energy my body possesses. My moment of triumph with Isabella feels so far away now.

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  Teaching was only supposed to be a short obstacle to my veritable goal. And that, my father remembers. “Have you talked to Dr. Krelic?” he asks, still chewing his food in his mouth. I roll my shoulders back and crack my neck before answering.

  “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, he’s been retired for a year,” my sister gestures for me to stop immediately before I crack my fingers too. “I thought I told you that.”

  “You didn’t,” he insists.

  I did. But this dinner needs to end already. It’s been what… twenty minutes of silent eating? And I’m yet again the center of his attention. Even as I search for my mom’s eyes, I found them riveted on her food. “Anyway. That answers your question.”

  “How is your article going?” His fork stabs the vegetables in his plate. I can feel the apparition of a headache forming at the front of my skull.

  “Working on it.”

  “It’s been a while,” he pushes, finally meeting my gaze.

  “I know.”

  “There’s a good chance your lack of publications is ruining your applications,” he chews one, two, three times, swallows and then points at me with his knife. “If you don’t put yourself out there, show your worth, nobody’s ever going to hire you. This isn’t about having the diplomas now; you have to make it impossible for them to avoid you. They need to be on their knees, kissing your feet for what you could offer to the science field.”

  Talking like a true shark of a lawyer. But as always, his words ring with the motivation that got buried under Anxiety and Fear of Failure. I’ve made peace with all of this, have told myself the same things over and over again and yet, I’m just pissed he’s still acting like I’m a toddler learning what life is about. I’m well aware of what I need to do to gain visibility in the field, what I need to progress on, what I need to work on, but so much time had passed and so many rejections have piled up, like the letters on the side of my cabinet by the front door of my apartment, that I lost the point.

  It's easy to fall into a routine. Our bodies and minds take approximately thirty days to learn a new habit and only a few weeks to lose one. We can, as human beings, shape our mind into whatever we want to be, as long as we have the mental strength and the sufficient motivation for stability and regularity. When I started writing my article on the subject of auto-immune diseases, I was certain within a few months, I would have no remaining classes to teach, a test lab to experiment and process my data, and that the amount of time off I would have would be designated to the finalization of my damn article. It didn’t go as planned. The months that followed, I was having more classes, not a single second experimenting and no free time to write anything else than my next courses or grade the test of my students.

  “Your reputation is terrible at Tufts,” he continues, as if my lack of response wasn’t enough of a hint.

  “Oh yeah?” Both my sister and mother straighten on their seats, feeling the shift in my own posture. This conversation is familiarly redundant and Stefan decides I need to hear it once again. “Tell me, dad, what is my reputation?”

  He can see I’m angry. Because he waits just a few seconds, like he’s searching for the right words to use. Let aside the ones that would make me stand up and throw my full plate on his face. He settles his fork and knife on the side and grabs his tissue to dab on his mouth. “They say you are ruthless. Perturbing. Unwelcoming.” He nods, crossing his fingers over his lips.

  He’s hesitating. I can see it in his eyes. He’s holding something back. Could he be restraining himself to avoid hurting my feelings? It doesn’t sound like him. Not his type. And when he takes one deep inspiration, I brace myself. “They say you are unqualified.”

  My mom turns to my father and whispers something in Slovak. He closes his eyes and grabs her hands. “He needs to hear it. He needs to know.”

  “You don’t have to talk to him like this,” they continue as if I wasn’t even in the room.

  “I always talk to him that way.”

  “And it works, apparently,” my sister responds only for me to hear. I chuckle although my mouth isn’t smiling. When their voices start to rise, I lift one of my hands while standing up, the loud noise of my chair is enough for them to give me their attention.

  “No need to fight over me again,” I grab the sweater on the backrest and talk as I put it on. “They would have fired me if I wasn’t qualified, dad. They’ve asked that I take over Dr. Felandra’s courses while she’s on her maternity leave.” Truly, Isabella convinced me it would be better. As she explained, sometimes, only time and experience need to be garnered. Elena and Katarina follow me as I join the coat hanger and take my vest. It was a very cold start of September. “I have much to do but I still work on my article. You’ll be the first one to receive it when it’s done.”

  He comes with all of us and looks at me in the eye before giving me one of his rough hugs. He never knew how to be properly affectionate. “Alright, son. You can do it.” He won’t apologize for his behavior but I’m sure mom will make it her personal quest to explain how rude he was. “Just, keep us updated.”

  “Of course. I’m sure it’ll happen sooner than we think.” I really have no idea.

  I take Elena by the neck and shove her onto my chest. “Talk to you later, sis. And good luck for your first day.”

  “You say that as if we won’t see each other there.”

  “We will cross paths, probably.”

  She will be starting her year at Tufts University too, only in the Engineering department.

  “Give me a kiss,” mother says and I bend for her to smash a peck on my cheek. “Take care.”

  “Thanks for dinner.” I answer.