Page 84 of You Are Not Me

Daniel’s brows creased with worry, so I smiled and shook it off. “I’m sorry. I’m being weird.”

“I like weird.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’ve met your friends. You don’t have to convince me.” He laughed, and I went on, “Anyway, you were telling me about your dad’s business?”

“Right. Well, Dad always wanted me to follow in his footsteps, take over the construction firm, expand it to be more of an architecture firm, all of that.”

“But if that’s not your thing, surely he could do something else with the business.”

“Dad also thought male nurses—which is what I wanted to be—were all sissies at best and fags at worst.”

“Oh.” I heard the past tense clearly this time.

“Yeah, so, he basically bullied that idea out of me. When he died a few years ago during my freshman year, I felt like I had to make him proud and do what he’d want in honor of his memory. Like that might make him not dead or something.” Daniel sneered at himself. “People make dumb choices when they’re grieving.”

I’d never known anyone whose parent had died before. I didn’t even want to imagine my life without Dad or Mom. “How did he… I mean, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. You can ask. Heart attack. He was in a business meeting when it happened. It was fast.”

“Holy shit. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s neverokay, but it doesn’t hurt every day anymore.”

Questions filled my head but I didn’t know how to ask them. Daniel seemed to sense it, though, and he added, “My mom was a mess for a while afterward, and I had to drop out of school for a year and a half to help with my younger brother and sister. It was rough.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister. You’d mentioned your brother once before, but you don’t talk about them much.”

“They’re young. Paul’s twelve and Kennedy’s only six.”

“Wow. That’s really spacing it out.”

Daniel smiled sadly. “My dad used to joke that they were pacing themselves.”

“Taking the family creation journey in the slow lane.”

Daniel chuckled. “Exactly.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes before I asked, “But if your dad’s gone now, why not do what you really want to do? Why not go into nursing?”

“There’s money involved. My father’s will stipulated that so long as the company stays in the family, my mom gets an annual stipend. If I choose to go another route, then the will directs we must sell the company to three of the members of the board for a set price. That price isn’t anything to sneeze at, but there’s more money in it for Mom, and for me, if I step up.”

All of that was so far beyond the kind of choices I’d faced in my life that I felt like Daniel had somehow morphed in front of my eyes from my friend into a grown-up.

“Mom told me I can do whatever I want, but I know she’s worried about keeping up her lifestyle if the annual income isn’t guaranteed. The financial advisors swear she’ll be fine unless the recession is prolonged, but she doesn’t believe them.”

“Doyoubelieve them?”

Daniel shrugged. “Who can tell the future? Besides, running the firm is something I could excel at and be proud of. It’s not like I’m making the choice to do something I’d be ashamed of or suck at, and I’d be helping my mom make sure she could send Paul and Kennedy to private schools, pay their college tuition, that sort of thing.”

I reached out to touch his hand across the table. He flipped it over and took hold of my fingers, squeezing before withdrawing.

“See?” he said. “You’re going to be just fine today. You’ve got all the right impulses.”

I didn’t want to let him change the subject. “But what about nursing?”

“I don’t know. Working with ARK has really opened my eyes. Some days I want nothing more than to say screw it, let the money from the sale be enough, and switch majors. Other days, when I’ve watched someone suffer all day, or one of our PWAs dies, I just don’t know if I’m cut out for it. There’s a lot of pain involved, and sometimes I can’t deal with it.”

He looked down at his plate, an expression of embarrassment flashing over his face. I wanted to scoot to the other side of the booth and put my arm around him. “Maybe you wouldn’t have to work in that kind of nursing, though.”

---