Imagine pulling up a plant by its shoots to try and force it to grow.” Her parents had a garden on their balcony, small and almost inconsequential. That was what she thought of now—how carefully her father tended to the herbs there, how her mother wrapped each plant in plastic when the weather threatened snow. There had been pride in their eyes when she left for MIT, and though she had known they were disappointed when she dropped out, they did not say it. She would have been the first in her family with a college degree.
