I wasn’t naive. Medical school would mean years of study, near-perfect grades, and money we didn’t have lying around. At thirty-one, with a job and two kids, my path would look nothing like the one I’d mapped out at sixteen.
But different isn’t the same as impossible.
On Wednesday I met with an academic adviser at Brookfield Community College, a patient woman named Ms. Alvarez who wore reading glasses on a beaded chain. She pulled up my transcripts and said I could start with two evening courses, biology and college algebra. If I managed those, I could add more.
We went over tuition, financial aid forms, and how to fit classes around my billing job. Nothing was guaranteed. There would be late nights and tired mornings. But for the first time in fifteen years, I was holding a real plan instead of a wish.
When I got home, Noah and Ethan were pacing the living room like expectant fathers.
