A Silver Photo Frame on Our Porch Ended My Fifteen Year Blind Spot
Claire set her satchel on the floor and ordered a black drip coffee, while I chose a plain tea. She did not wait for the drinks to arrive before opening her yellow legal pad, her pen already poised.
“There is a transition program,” she said, her voice dropping to a confidential whisper that barely carried over the hiss of the espresso machine. “It is a specialized fellowship for returning scholars who took a career pause. It is designed precisely for people like Anna who had high-level undergraduate success but left the field.”
“What are the parameters?” I asked. “I need the concrete data points.”
“The administrative deposit is five thousand dollars,” Claire said. She wrote the number on the pad and circled it twice. “It covers the laboratory insurance and the initial materials fee for the first semester. It is a security deposit to ensure the candidate is serious.”
I sat back in my chair, the wooden slats pressing against my shoulder blades. Five thousand dollars was a significant sum. It was nearly the entire balance of our home repair fund, the money we had set aside in case the furnace in our colonial house failed this winter.
