Meg sighed. "Well, hell, Christine, what are you gonna do?"
The straight words seemed to reach into Christine's neurotic mind and steady her. She seemed to truly consider the problem for a few long moments.
Then she sighed too.
"I don't know, Meg," she groaned, setting her glass down and morosely nibbling at a strawberry, "I don't even know what I want!"
"Well…" Meg said, pouring herself some more champagne, "first of all, do you want to keep going at the hospital? Cause I can tell you from experience, if this isn't something you love, then you're just going to hate every single day of it. At the end of my residency, I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep on being a surgeon. But I'm glad I did stick with it. But you've got this whole unresolved career choice thing going on…maybe you should drop out of the program."
Christine groaned. "That'd be just so much wasted time and money, Meg! I've poured myself into this since freshman year of college!"
"But it wasn't what you really wanted to do!" Meg cried, deciding that a little more pressure would be acceptable. "Listen, Christine, do you want to be a doctor or a singer?"
"That sounds so melodramatic."
Meg groaned. "You're kind of missing the point! You're coming up on the end of your three years, at the end of which time you'll be a doctor. That's your life, right there. Now, it certainly isn't set in stone, but come on…I know you, Christine. If you've got a safe haven to retreat to, you won't come out of it. You'll just float along with the current until you finally decide that you've had enough, and that could be years from now."
"I can't leave until I've got my degree. I just can't justify the time and the money spent. My Mom isn't rich, and she's been pouring money into my education. How am I going to tell her that right at the end I'm going to dump it all and just become a musician? How would I pay off my loans, support myself…how would I live?" Christine's face was desperate. "I'm just not that brave, Meg."
Meg shook her head and sighed. She knew what Christine meant. Leaving the comfort of a guaranteed job for the no-guarantees life of a musician would be frightening for anyone. Add to that the fact that Christine had probably been living her life by routine ever since her father died…no wonder it was an insurmountable idea…
"Listen, I can't tell you what to do." Meg began, feeling her way, "Scratch that, I can't even advise you on what to do. But Christine…don't let fear stop you from being happy. If I were you, I'd try and feel your way back into the music scene, even if you still decide to go for the medical degree. Then, no matter what happens, you'll be able to go both ways. If you get an offer to sing somewhere, you can do that, and come back to being a doctor. But don't cut off music entirely…you'll only hurt yourself."
Christine sighed. "Yeah, I understand. I have to keep going for my degree. I have to see my residency through. I just can't justify quitting so late in the game, and I can't abandon the hospital either."
Meg nodded, and poured her friend more champagne. "Drink it, Christine, it'll do you good."
Christine sighed. "I've been having too much recently, Meg. So, thanks but no thanks. I gotta see this one through with a clear head."
Meg smiled and nodded. "Okay. So are we going to do this shopping for your new boudoir or what?"
"Yes." Christine nodded firmly. "The bus should be leaving for the mall soon…I don't think either of us is in a state to drive, anyway."
"Bus is better for the environment anyway," Meg said, giving an exaggerated hiccup.
Later that night, Christine lay under her new filmy white canopy and stared at the deep blue walls. It was time for a good, long think. Though her therapists had told her that probably laying the memories aside would be the best step, obviously she needed to dredge some of them up again.
She stood from the bed and crossed to her closet, shoving open the sticky doors and reaching to the very top shelf. Here lay the shoebox full of things she just couldn't bear to look at after her father had died. She held it and took it back to the bed, wishing that she had something to drink to just take the edge of the pain, but earlier that day she had dumped the rest of the brandy and the two bottles of wine in the house down the drain. She needed to face this with a clear mind.
The dust on top of the shoebox was thick, as she hadn't touched the box for close on to ten years now, and she opened it swiftly and laid it aside.
First she removed the five CDs, the recordings that she and her father had made together…when she'd been dreaming of singing competitions and the stage, and he'd been her proud trainer and accompanist.
She held them in her hands for a long moment, pain lancing so at her heart that she didn't think she could possibly put the first one into the player. But, slowly, her fingers tight with unwillingness, she put it in and put on the headphones.
There was her own voice, young and barely trained, but still a sweet, clear soprano that she could hardly recognize as still being her own. The Last Rose of Summer, one of her youthful favorite songs, done with only her voice and a piano accompanying. Had she ever really been that good?
And then, there was her father's voice, as they did a duet on a slightly more adult scale. Time to Say Goodbye…obviously, they sounded much less professional than Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman, but still…
Christine felt one tear slide down her cheek, and stopped the CD. Replacing the disc carefully in its case, she moved on to the other items in the box.
The tapes of their practice sessions she knew would be much too painful to hear. She and her father had bantered back and forth between songs, and the sound of his voice, so close and familiar, yet separated by worlds, would be too much to take.
But there were other things to remind her of just how far she'd strayed from her intended path. There was the certificate of honorable mention from her first singing competition, only a few months before her father died…she'd been eight. After that, there had been no competitions…singing became too painful.
Her opera CDs were in here as well. Maria Callas, her one-time role model, smiled up at her on the cover of a CD of romantic arias. Her father had bequeathed to her the honor of carrying on the legacy of the great female vocalists, and this CD had been his last present to her…before…
What was she doing? Wasn't it just better to let all this pain, all these memories, stay in the past? She was a doctor now! Wasn't that just as good a career as a singer? Whose path was she trying to walk? She had been so young when she'd planned on being a singer…didn't every little girl plan on being an actress, or artist, or figure skater? And how many of them actually did that? It wasn't anything to be ashamed of! She'd grown up!
Christine sighed and replaced her dear Maria Callas. There was more to it than that. It wasn't that her father had wanted her to be a singer…she had wanted to be a singer. She had been truly happy when she sang. A pure happiness that she would not feel again. Would not feel again unless she pursued it.
Yes, she did have to finish her residency. She had to go through with that. But afterwards…would it be so selfish if she tried? Tried to regain what she had put aside?
She owed it to her father and herself.
She closed the shoebox and slid it under her bed, turned off the light, and went to sleep.