Mother Nature and Mother Paula were conspiring against me. This much was obvious. Liquid precipitation fell heavy on the windshield as Arthur drove us the sixty-one miles to Spencer’s hometown of Bellville, Ohio. A silence filled the vehicle, the kind of silence that typically made me anxious. But at this moment in time, under these highly unusual circumstances, I was thankful for a moment to remember exactly who I was. Because for the next three days, I was going to be a stranger even to myself.  For the next three days, I was this vegetable retrieving version of Ashley Davies. I was Spencer’s version.

“So, Spence, how’d you two meet?” Arthur asked, glancing at us through the rearview mirror.

“I did a mural for her a few weeks ago.”

Mural? Mural?!

I stared at her—hard. And she must have felt it, because she turned towards me and flashed me a smile that I’m sure was intended to be reassuring. It’s wasn’t.

“Oh really? That’s great. What kind of mural did you have done, Ashley?”

“Oh…um…I got the Mona Lisa on my bathroom floor.”

I could see Spencer smiling out of the corner of my eye.

“Interesting,” Arthur said with a nod.

“You know what’s interesting?” Paula asked, speaking for the first time since the arrival’s gate, “it’s interesting that Spencer has a degree in History that my husband and I are still paying for and instead of moving forward with that, she’s putting tile in people’s houses. I think that’s interesting.”

“Paula…”

“No, Dad…it’s fine,” Spencer said, but her face said otherwise. And her eyes which were pretending to follow tiny raindrop trails down the window held a sadness that absolutely slayed me.

“Well if it’s any consolation, she did an amazing job on my floor,” I said, spurred forth by the fact that I would never have to see this woman again after this week, “Sometimes we have a calling, Paula. Right? Like, you’re a doctor now but I’m sure you didn’t always know that’s what you wanted to do.”

“Actually, I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was six years-old.”

“Well, great. That’s awesome. We don’t all get that lucky, you know? But sometimes purely by accident we find that…that thing and we just have to drop all these meaningless expectations and go for it. That’s life. I don’t think I’ve ever made an accurate prediction about my future.”