The next morning, I received a phone call from an unfamiliar number.<\/p>\n
A woman introduced herself as Ms. Bennett, Logan's school counselor.<\/p>\n
She wanted to discuss his recent absences and academic performance.<\/p>\n
I explained that I knew about the attendance notice.<\/p>\n
"I'd also like to discuss something Logan told me," she said.<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n
"Is he in trouble?"<\/p>\n
"Not in the way you're imagining."<\/p>\n
She explained that Logan had been spending time in the school library during classes he had stopped attending.<\/p>\n
He wasn't skipping school to meet friends or get into trouble.<\/p>\n
He had been trying to complete assignments for a scholarship program.<\/p>\n
"He told me he wanted to qualify for a technical college," she said. "He seems very interested in electrical engineering."<\/p>\n
I stared at the kitchen wall.<\/p>\n
Logan had never mentioned that dream.<\/p>\n
I knew he liked fixing broken appliances. I knew he could repair a lamp or replace a computer component after watching a few tutorials.<\/p>\n
But I hadn't realized he was thinking about a career.<\/p>\n
"Why didn't he tell me?" I asked.<\/p>\n
Ms. Bennett paused.<\/p>\n
"He said you were already sacrificing so much that he didn't want to ask you for anything else."<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
There it was again.<\/p>\n
My son believed that having a dream was another burden he would place on me.<\/p>\n
The counselor told me that Logan had missed a scholarship application deadline because he lacked certain documents and had been trying to earn money for the application fees.<\/p>\n
She also said he had been reluctant to ask teachers for help.<\/p>\n
I thanked her and hung up.<\/p>\n
Then I sat at the kitchen table for nearly an hour.<\/p>\n
I had spent so much time worrying about whether Logan was becoming a troubled teenager that I had never asked what kind of future he imagined for himself.<\/p>\n
When he came downstairs, I was still sitting there.<\/p>\n
He glanced at the papers in front of me.<\/p>\n
"What's wrong?"<\/p>\n
"Nothing is wrong."<\/p>\n
He looked suspicious.<\/p>\n
"Then why are you looking at me like that?"<\/p>\n
I took a breath.<\/p>\n
"Because I just learned that you want to become an electrical engineer."<\/p>\n
His expression changed.<\/p>\n
For the first time in months, he looked genuinely surprised.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I received a phone call from an unfamiliar number. A woman introduced herself as Ms. Bennett, Logan's school counselor. She wanted to discuss his recent absences and … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40519,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40499\/revisions\/40519"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}