Maya traced her finger along the spines of medical textbooks, remembering how her mother had done the same with cookbooks in their old apartment's kitchenette. The residency acceptance letter lay unopened on her desk, next to a stack of loan statements that made her stomach clench.

"You're going to be a doctor," her mother would say between double shifts at the diner, pressing cold compresses to her swollen feet. "Like your father wanted to be, before..." The sentence always trailed off there, into the space left by his death. No life insurance, just mounting medical bills that her mother was still paying off twenty years later.

Her phone buzzed – a text from her cousin James: "Starting at Goldman next week! Dad's old roommate came through. Dinner at the club to celebrate?"

Maya smiled, remembering summers at James's house, swimming in their pool while her mother cleaned their rooms. Aunt Caroline had always pushed for Maya to visit, saying "cousins should grow up together," though Maya noticed how her mother's shoulders tensed each time.

The student loan officer had smirked when Maya listed her mother's income. "Have you considered a less... ambitious program?" He'd glanced meaningfully at the community college brochures. Maya had thought of her father's unfinished pre-med textbooks, salvaged from garage sales, dog-eared pages filled with his cramped notes. Of her mother's hands, cracked from hot water and harsh soaps, pressing those books into Maya's hands.

"I'll make it work," she'd said.

Now, staring at the residency letter, Maya felt the weight of two generations' dreams. Her phone buzzed again – James sharing photos of his new apartment overlooking Central Park. The kind of view her future patients would have, though never her mother.

She opened the letter. "We are pleased..." The words blurred as she thought of her mother, who'd mastered the art of turning expired groceries into meals that looked "fancy, like on TV." Who'd taught Maya to speak "proper English" while speaking Spanish with her co-workers. Who'd cleaned other people's houses so Maya could have a room of her own to study in.

Maya picked up her phone to call the one person who'd understand the true weight of those words: "We are pleased to accept..."