I worked at a Hollywood studio for 3 years before I decided that I should be a doctor. I quit my job, drove cross-country, and moved in with my mother and stepfather to complete the prerequisite course work. For most individuals, especially one who takes pictures of her stove before she leaves to ensure all knobs are “off,” it was a massive risk. Three years later, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine called to offer me a place off the waitlist. The call was also an offer to come home.
I was born in Baltimore, at Johns Hopkins Hospital. My father walked out when I was an infant, and I never saw him again. When we moved away, I asked my mother, “What if he can’t find us?” From the silence in the car, even at 8 years old, I knew I had waded out too far. In the transcript of our family, my father was our silent mutation. An error, we told ourselves, that did not matter anymore. I do not remember when I started to call my stepfather “Dad.”