A Silver Photo Frame on Our Porch Ended My Fifteen Year Blind Spot
The corporate board had cleared the budget for my relocation, effective at the end of the next month.
It was the exact advancement I had spent the last three years positioning myself to receive.
It meant a seat at the regional table, a corner office overlooking the loop, and a permanent escape from the mid-level stagnation I had secretly feared for a decade.
But as I stared at the bold font of the approval notice, my hand remained still on the mouse.
A move to Chicago meant packing up our colonial house, withdrawing the children from their schools, and leaving the state university system behind.
It meant Anna would be hundreds of miles away from Claire Vance, from the department of molecular biology, and from the laboratory where her name was still remembered.
It would effectively seal the door on the academic path she had sacrificed ten years ago to fund my own education.
I closed the email window and looked toward the hallway where Marcus was gathering his schoolbooks.
He was struggling to fit a rectangular box of seventy-two blue chalk pieces, the one that had cost us four dollars at the pharmacy, into the side pocket of his backpack.
