Every Night (Brush of Love 1)

“He got any brothers I could call?” she asked.

I winced at her comment. My mind threw me back to L.A. and to my time at the small little space I’d rented where I could do my art therapy classes. I remembered seeing John for the first time coming off his first stage of withdrawals. He stumbled into my shop, so he could get out of the rain, and he was mesmerized by the artwork I’d hung on the walls.

“Nope. No brothers you could call,” I said.

“Damn. Better luck next time. So, I think I have enough wine.”

“Good. What’s going on?”

“Well, it begins with Mom and Dad. They want me to position myself to make partner next year.”

“At the firm,” I said.

“Yep. We’ve been having these regular family dinners where they plan out my entire life right there in front of me like I don’t fucking exist.”

“Family dinners, huh?”

I felt my heart sink to my toes in that very instant. They were still called family dinners even if I wasn’t sitting at the table. I felt tears rise to my eyes as I looked away, grabbing another slice of pizza before Anna could see how much that phrase had hurt me.

But Anna had always been quick with her ability to read people, and it didn’t take much before I felt her hand descend onto my knee.

“Hailey, they’ll come around,” she said.

“They won’t. I call them, and they don’t call back. I tell them I’m coming into town, and they’re conveniently not home. I haven’t talked to them in years, Anna. They don’t give a shit about me.”

“Yes, they do. You’re their daughter.”

“Who abandoned their plan for my life and followed my own,” I said.

“Hey. It takes a hell of a lot of strength to do that. I wish I could. I’m doing all this shit they want me to do to make partner, pulling late nights, taking pro bono cases. Fuck, I’ve got so many on my plate, I’m barely breaking even with my own bills most months.”

“Anna, you can’t let them do that to you. You’ve got to make a living,” I said.

“And I’ve backed off on some. The firm saw the workload I was taking on, and they hired me a secretary. She can’t do a lot of the legwork, but she can do the preliminary stuff. My schedule’s stacked to the brim, though.”

“Then how are you here early?” I asked. “I mean, visiting me if you have that much work?”

“I may or may not have told Mom and Dad to go screw themselves at our last family dinner.”

“Okay. Can we stop calling them that, please? And what? Good for you! I’ve been waiting for you to take a stand on your life my entire life.”

“Oh, no. Hold your applause. I had to put it in terms they would understand. They don’t care that I’m burning the candle at both ends, that I’m taking sleeping pills to sleep and then shit to wake up. They don’t care that I’m about to be prescribed anti-anxiety pills just to walk into my place of work every day. But the moment I told them I wasn’t able to save back for my early retirement, that I wouldn’t be able to afford the dresses for their social calendar this year, that’s when they listened. When it affected them.”

“How does your early retirement affect them?” I asked.

“Because Mom may or may not want me to eventually take over her business.”

“Oh, come on, Anna. When’s it going to end? You’re miserable as a lawyer. Does Mom really think you can make partner, retire early, and then live her own legacy?” I asked.

“I don’t know what to do, Hailey. I dumped some of my pro bono cases onto my other workers, selling them on how it would look good on their fucking scorecards, and then hit the airport.”

“I bet if I got rich off my art, they wouldn’t give a shit that I wasn’t a doctor,” I said.

“Probably not, honestly,” Anna said, sighing. “I admire you, Hailey. My job, it isn’t fulfilling. I never wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to sing. I wanted to perform on grand stages with tenors whose voices pierced my heart. I wanted to be serenaded by basses whose notes rattled my bones. I wanted to travel to Germany and Austria and Belgium and Australia. I wanted to sing on the world’s biggest stages and serenade my family in the audience.”

“Don’t you see that you still can, Anna? It’s never too late. Some of your idols in the opera world didn’t start their careers until their late thirties. If you don’t feel comfortable quitting your job yet, then take voice lessons. Allow those lessons to find your passion again. Save back money. Build up four years of savings. Then, just go. Sell your stuff, buy a one-way ticket, and just go, Anna.”

“How do you have that kind of confidence?” she asked. “How can you just go?”