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babysit for anyone’s
children again, unless of course they happened to be her own. Penny knew she
was worth so much more than that. She calmly finished her omelet and completed
her resume as best as she could. She knew it was time to go home: dinnertime
for Bob and Winston.

Chapter 10
    Barely a week after completing her resume, she sat fretting
in a hallway at Wayside Hospital waiting for an interview with Chief of Staff
Dr Kittles. Should the interview go well, she would meet with the head nurse.
The anxiety had turned her breath shallow, making her feel amost faint. She
tried to compensate with deep breaths, but nothing seemed to be working. She
knew her resume was lacking but she also knew Wayside Hospital was lacking in
nurses. She could only cross her fingers and hope she interviewed well. She was
proud to have gotten this far.
    As much as she tried not to, her mind
returned to the last visit with her family on Sunday. Her brothers and Aunt
Bess were visiting and she decided it was as good a time as any to take the
plunge and tell them she had an interview at Wayside. There was utter,
contemptuous silence. The evening had gone downhill from there. But of course,
Penny had expected that.
    “You are making a huge mistake,” Dolores
insisted with a look of astonishment. “You would throw away a wonderful career
at Fernfair to take care of really ill people? You are crazier than I thought.”
    She felt the anger well up. “You call
what I do a career?” She threw down her slice of pizza. Tomato sauce sprayed
all over her white shirt. She dabbed at it with her napkin. “You’ve got to be
kidding me. Let’s see,” she put her forefinger on her chin, “what did I do this
week? Ah, yes. I had to call six mothers to bring in clothes for their kids. At
recess, eight boys decided to have a free-for-all mud fight.”
    Standing up from the table, she said with
sarcasm filling her voice, “Oh, and let’s not forget, I also helped Lindsey
Leopold find the chapstick in her backpack because she had dry cracked lips.
Well, I think that’s it,” she added in a clipped voice. “I guess that sums up
my week.”
    Dolores huffed, “Again with the sarcasm,
I can’t stand it any more.”
    Perched on a solitary stool in the middle
of the kitchen, Aunt Bess, exasperated, put her hands up in the air. “Leave her
alone already Dolores. Let her do what she wants. It’s her life.”
    Whirling around, Dolores snapped, “Don’t
get involved, Bess, it has nothing to do with you. She’s not your daughter and
you don’t know how she can be.”
    “How can I be Mom?” Penny asked in a
steely voice.
    “Stubborn.”
    Penny’s father Ron finally piped in.
“Penny, you’re getting to an age where maybe you shouldn’t be thinking of a
career change. Before you know it, you’ll be wanting to plan a nice nest egg
for your retirement.”
    Feeling her stomach clench, she took a
sip of seltzer. Right Dad, never form an opinion on your own, just parrot Mom
like you always do. It felt like two fists were slamming into each other in the
pit of her stomach. Both of her sisters-in-law were watching her, waiting to
see her reaction. This made her literally bite her tongue so she wouldn’t lose
her temper. As calmly as possible she addressed her father. “I’m not planning
on retiring for a long time Dad. I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet.”
She looked around at her family. “I thought you all would be happy for me.
Don’t you think I’m too young to close up shop so early? Why do you have such
low expectations, and why for God’s sake do you expect life to offer me nothing
but frozen dinners and Fernfair elementary school?” She turned around and
stalked to the front door. She slammed it and walked toward her car with tears
streaming down her face.
    With a smile, she remembered Aunt Bess
following her with a sausage and cheese calzone in her left hand. “Don’t let
that woman get to you Penny,” she had declared.