The Long Way Home

When Maya finished school, everyone expected her to become a doctor like her mother.

Instead, she took a job at a small bakery near the station, which surprised the whole family.

Her mother did not speak to her for a week, and Maya cried in the kitchen every night.

After six months of waking up at four in the morning, she knew that baking was not her real love either.

One rainy afternoon, a customer asked her to fix a broken chair in the corner of the shop.

Maya spent two hours on it and felt happier than she had in years.

She started taking evening classes in furniture design while she kept working at the bakery.

Two years later, she opened a small workshop where she repairs and builds chairs, tables and shelves.

Her mother came to visit last spring and sat on a wooden bench that Maya had made.

"This is good work," she said quietly, and Maya smiled.