Eat Cake: A Novel by Jeanne Ray

dinner,” my mother said.
    “Don’t panic,” Sam told her. “There’s no chance of me going to medical school.”
    Sam was fifty-three. I figured two years for pre-med, four years for medical school, three years for internship and residency. That put him comfortably past sixty. God help us if he wanted to specialize.
    “I had never realized what a smart man your husband is,” my father said. “I didn’t get to see enough of him over the years. If I had had a son, a son who wasn’t musically inclined, I would have wanted him to be a doctor. I think it is a very noble profession.”
    “But wait a minute, you had a daughter.” Camille squinted at him, her burgeoning feminist logic telling her that something was fishy. “Why didn’t you want Mom to be a doctor?”
    I was incredibly touched that either Camille thought I could have been a doctor or that she was sticking up for me. I was also interested in the answer.
    “I guess I never thought about that,” my father said in a puzzled voice.
    “What a surprise,” my mother said into her orange juice.
    My father opened his mouth to make a smart comeback and I took the opportunity to give him another bite of his dinner. He didn’t think his daughter who was now cutting his meat was smart enough to be a doctor, but how do you say that at the dinner table?
    “Even if I did want to be a doctor,” Sam said, holding up his hands, “and believe me, I don’t, I know what direction health care is going in. I wouldn’t want any part of it.”
    I put down the fork. “You mean you don’t want to work in hospital administration anymore?” I tried to keep my voice steady. I wasn’t sure what else Sam knew how to do.
    Sam looked behind him as if the answer were floating somewhere in the back of the kitchen. “I don’t think so.”
    “What about the job in Des Moines?”
    Camille let her fork drop with a clang against her plate. “We’re moving to Des Moines?”
    He shook his head. “Didn’t pan out.”
    Camille sighed with relief. “I would die in Des Moines.”
    “Did you ask your friend there about other hospitals?” Had I been counting on that in the back of my mind without even realizing it? A fallback plan in Iowa?
    “It’s so old,” my father said, offering Sam an exit from the awkward moment. “He’s done all of that. What would the point be in going back and doing it again?”
    “Money,” my mother said.
    My father looked at her with utter exasperation. “After all these years I would have thought you would have learned a new song. Money, money, money. That’s what tore us apart, you know. You never had any vision. You thought there was only one means to measure the value of a man.”
    “I thought our daughter should eat regularly,” my mother said. “Call me old-fashioned.”
    “A complete lack of vision,” my father reiterated.
    “So why haven’t you found another job if you think change is such a vital part of life?” my mother asked.
    “Because I still enjoy my job. I’m still good at it. Fortunately, playing the piano is one field where you get credit for being older. People look at you and think you must be accomplished. They see some young kid playing and it makes them uncomfortable having a cocktail, like they might be corrupting him. They see me and think, That old guy has been in a bar all these years and he still looks pretty good. I inspire people to order up.”
    “So what do you think you might be interested in?” I said to Sam. I passed him a bowl of sautéed spinach. It was his favorite. I wanted him to know I was thinking of him.
    My father tapped his foot against the floor, which is how those without hands get attention. “You can’t
ask
those kinds of questions now. A man has to find himself. Sam has been supporting this family for twenty-five years. Now he has to take some time, learn to listen to himself again. He has to take some time to think about the direction he wants to go in.”
    “Dad, it hasn’t