cramp of discovery

Rachel had returned to live at home.  She had stored most of her things, brining only some warm winter clothing and the assumption that she was going to be providing much needed help to her family. Her mother was sick, a heart defect had been discovered that affected the strength of the pump in her veins. She had slowed down, grown thicker through her mid-arm section and up through her once lean biceps. She had also let her hair gray at the roots. Still, she did not let the condition quell her passion for attacking Rachel’s wrongs. “Well, what are you going to do now?” She asked every morning. “I am going to look for a job, right now, right after I have some cereal.” Rachel replied. “OK, and that boyfriend of yours, the non-Jew, yes, now you don’t think I don’t know about him, I do, and you should be ashamed of yourself.” She poked, and poked some more. Rachel was often strangling her mother, but only in her head. Reminding herself that she had come to help, Rachel offered, “Mom, lets not discuss these things that we will never agree on, just tell me what can I do to help out around here.” Rachel was searching for anything productive in her mother’s response.  Her hope dissipated. “You can be smart, love yourself, and stop wasting your time with this boy, and find a job!” Rachel looked around the dinning room that exhaled a maddening, yellow hue. Everything was yellow, the lighting, the walls, and the pictures upon them.
Rachel’s sister, Katarina, had developed a slight eating order, something just beyond normal in a private New York City high school, and therefore had been bombarded with physicians, nutritionists, and therapists. Rachel was prepared to motivate her sister through this episode, and had a series of pep talks prepared on the virtue of being an athlete and of having a strong build. But when Rachel heaved down beside the much smaller framed Katrina at the cluttered dinning room table drowning in sewing materials, ninth grade textbooks, and snack bowls filled with assorted berries and pretzels, Rachel realized her sister was already getting over it on her own (plus the twenty grand in doctor visits). Katarina ate at a moderate pace while doing her homework, her pointy elbows skimmed between her plate and her assignments, and not a word of the drama, which had been broadcast to Rachel every night over the phone while living in Chicago, was ever mentioned. Instead Katarina asked, “Well, what’s your plan?” Rachel presumed that the question only occurred to Katrina because she had overheard their mother complain the inquiry to a half dozen of her closest housewife friends. “My plan, is to get some kind of work, you know, its hard in this economy.” Rachel could not believe she would now have to have this conversation with Katrina. “I have a friend whose sister just got a job, maybe I can ask her if she can help out.” Katrina said, glancing up at Rachel. “Sure, any help helps. What are you working on there?” Rachel peered over her sister’s shoulder, only to see that Katrina was nearly finished with the assignment. Rachel sat beside Katrina in silence, occasionally reaching for something out of her sister’s snack bowl.
Rachel’s father had been planning on leaving his work and starting a company of his own. Rachel had thought maybe she could inject herself into his plan. They had discussed this many times. “I should move back home and pursue my career there.” Rachel would say to him. “Yes, you should.” He would reply. Rachel had taken that comment to practically stand in the stead of a job offer, an invitation to join the team he was building, but she would never really know because by the time Rachel had moved back, the bonuses at her father’s company had fallen through and her family’s economic situation was too precarious to take on such risks. Rachel was now beginning to apply to any position without notice of where or with what purpose. She could not handle the look in her father’s eyes when he asked her, “well, what’s your plan, now that you have rested a couple of months.” Moping was not going to be an option. She went on a few interviews.
She was on the bus heading uptown to get to the office in time for a full day of orientation as the new document reviewer for a large medical malpractice case. So this is how we become what we become, she thought. This is regret! Her heart was dislocating and swimming toward her throat. She was horrified at the realization that nobody needed her! But also thrilled. Her fingers were numb, and she wrestled her IPod to switch the toggle to the off position. Music only made her feel sicker. She searched for her reflection in the window, and as it was daylight, she was able to catch only the darkest of her eyes. She leaned in, pressing her left cheek against the cold window. For the first time, she saw through the selfless visage her favorite philosopher Ayn Rand had always criticized. The bus rolled on and Rachel excitingly with it. At a red light, she transfixed her gaze an angry kite affected erratically and only by the wind. Rachel had missed her stop, and would be late for her first day of work. Grounds for firing, she would learn.

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