The dismissal started when I was seventeen, sitting at the kitchen table with my college acceptance letters spread out in front of me. Pre-med. My brother Marcus laughed, reading over my shoulder.
He was twenty-one then, finishing his business degree at State. “That’s ambitious for someone who barely passed high school chemistry.”
“I got a B plus,” I said quietly. “Exactly.” He grabbed an apple from the counter.
“Medical school is for people who get straight A’s without trying. People with natural talent. Not people who have to study all weekend just to get by.”
Dad looked up from his newspaper.
“Marcus has a point, Sarah. Medical school is extremely competitive. Have you considered nursing instead?
It’s a respectable career and more realistic.”
Mom nodded from the stove. “Your aunt Linda is a nurse. She loves it.
Very stable, good hours, and you’d still be helping people.”
“I want to be a surgeon,” I said. The kitchen went silent except for the sound of Mom’s wooden spoon scraping the pot. Marcus broke the silence with another laugh.
“A surgeon? Sarah, do you have any idea how many years that takes? How much it costs?
How competitive it is?”
“I have a full scholarship, too.”
“A scholarship to State,” he interrupted. “Not Johns Hopkins. Not Harvard.
State.”
“Marcus went to State,” I pointed out. “For business. That’s different.
Medical school at State isn’t exactly prestigious.”
I folded my acceptance letters and left the kitchen. That conversation set the pattern for the next eight years. When I got accepted to medical school, Marcus was building his real estate investment company.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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