Dinner with My Father

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Every December, Clara drove two hours to her parents' house for dinner. This year, she had a secret in her bag: a letter from a music school in Chicago. She had been accepted, and she had to answer within a week.

Her father, Hector, was carving the chicken when she arrived. He had run the family hardware store for thirty years, and he always said the same thing: "One day, this will be yours." Clara's mother kept filling glasses, even when nobody needed water.

"So, how's work?" Hector asked. "Good," said Clara. "Busy." She was a bookkeeper at a small company, a steady job he was proud of. The knife scraped the plate. The clock in the hall ticked louder than usual.

"Dad, I might not stay at my job forever," she said at last. He raised his eyebrows. "Music isn't a career, Clara. You should be careful. If you leave a good job, you might never find another." "I know," she said. "I'm not asking for permission." Her mother stopped pouring.

Hector put down his knife. For a long time, he said nothing. Then he stood up and went to the garage. Clara looked at her plate. She thought that he might be too angry to come back, and that she would drive home with nothing solved.

But he came back with an old guitar case, covered in dust. "I played in a band when I was twenty," he said. "We were terrible, but we were happy. Then your grandfather got sick, and I took over the store. I never regretted it, but I never asked myself what would have happened if I had said no." He looked at her for a moment. "I don't want you to ask yourself that question."

"So you're not angry?" she whispered. "I'm scared," he said. "That's different." He sat down and picked up his fork. "Now eat, before your mother's chicken gets cold. And send that letter tomorrow, not next week. If you wait, you'll find a reason to say no."

Clara laughed, and her eyes filled with tears. Her mother put a glass of water in front of her, and this time, somebody really needed it.