‘I’m just saying.’
An Asian woman came through the car selling batteries, little plastic noisemakers, plastic key chains, Seek-And-Find word puzzles, Skittles candy. The loot was in a large box strapped to her chest. She waved the noisemakers in our faces and pantomimed a light show with a laser pointer. Something about the laser pointer reminded me of the statement I had tried to write this morning for my fellowship. Explain your inspiration for pursuing a scientific career. I had sat at my laptop, eating pretzels out of the bag, thinking and thinking and thinking. I knew I wanted to study DNA when a substitute teacher stood up in front of our class and told me that all of our secrets, every single thing about us, is coded within our DNA, and if we look hard enough, we’ll be able to figure it out. He was asked to leave after that, and later we found out he’d doctored his whole résumé. Still, what he said had a huge effect on me, greater than anything any other teacher taught me before or since.
I had erased it and started over.
Although I would like to take this fellowship, I probably can’t. I shouldn’t, in fact, pursue medical school, either, because my father likes to drill pieces of glass into his arm and that takes up a lot of my time. I’m sorry.
My father had dressed up for the occasion, wearing a button-down shirt and carefully ironed khakis. His loafers were shined and his fingernails were clipped and he put his contacts in, although he was blinking furiously, not used to them yet. He hadn’t shaved or gotten a haircut, but his hair was combed, his beard a bit less scraggly. At first, he came into the kitchen wearing a tie, but I told him to take it off. I couldn’t imagine him lying there on the bed, electrodes hooked up to his temples, wearing a tie.
‘Tell me something,’ my dad said.
‘Something what?’
‘Something about your life. Did you give that coat back yesterday?’
I sighed. ‘No.’
‘What were you doing yesterday, then?’
‘Nothing. Reading. I don’t know.’
He made a clucking noise with his tongue. ‘My daughter, the thief.’
‘I didn’t steal it. It was an accident.’
‘Uh huh.’
The train’s doors opened. The echoing sounds of a platform performer rushed in; a black man in dirty jeans and a brown, tattered sweater strummed a guitar and belted out ‘Redemption Song’. He was good, but everyone was ignoring him. I could still hear him as the train pulled away.
‘Well, tell me something else,’ my father goaded. ‘Just talk.’
I flared out my hands. ‘I have to write a statement,’ I blurted out. ‘For that fellowship, the one I told you about.’ The one I didn’t tell you everything about. ‘They want me to write an essay about why I want to be a scientist. And…and just about me, in general.’
‘And?’
I wrapped my hands around my knees. ‘And I don’t know what to say.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I just…I’m not good at that sort of thing.’
My father settled back against the plastic seat. ‘Aren’t you becoming a scientist because of me?’
The subway rocked and rattled. Across the aisle, Captain Morgan whispered into a girl’s ear. He looked like a transvestite. ‘You?’ I repeated.
‘Well, sure. I always wanted you to study science. Your mother always wanted you to go into liberal arts, something like English or journalism or maybe even PR, like she was doing. But you picked science. I’m glad you did.’
It was that he just assumed. Like I didn’t have a mind of my own, like I couldn’t come to decisions for reasons unrelated to my past. The anger was palpable, like a paper cut slicing into my finger. I thought about what he’d said years ago in relation to his sickness: I hope this never happens to you. He just assumed we were coasting on the same fixed path in every regard, and there was nothing I could do about it. On one hand, it was what I believed in, but on the other, it was exactly what I fought against.
I looked away. ‘It’s not like I want to go into dermatology.’
He looked away, too, and I knew I’d hurt his feelings. Why didn’t I just say yes, he was an influence? Yes, I liked science because he did?
‘I probably won’t even take the fellowship, anyway,’ I mumbled. ‘What’s the point of writing anything?’
‘Why wouldn’t you take it?’
It’s in Ireland. Which is a million miles away.
‘You’re lucky you have the opportunity to succeed, to go out into the world and do things,’ he said. ‘You’re so lucky you can just go and do that.’