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"You are a good daughter, you know," Mummy says with a pat on my arm. She shuffles back across our small apartment and heads into her room, closing the door softly behind her.

A leaky faucet of guilt starts to drip within me, but I firmly screw it shut. I will not let it overflow. I need to focus. I take in a deep breath and exhale slowly to clear my mind and begin listing out the things that I have to accomplish this morning. First, I will finish washing these dishes. Next, I'll grab my things so that I can head to the bus and then the next bus and 'then' the ferry that will take me to work. Finally, I'll pull off the soft launch of my supper club and everything will go perfectly & If Mummy knew what was on my little to-do list, she would most definitely take issue with that last item.

As the daughter of a Haitian immigrant, I have a responsibility to choose a respectable career path. I'm constantly reminded of it. You might be familiar with this looming expectation—it's often the legacy of children whose parents moved to the United States in pursuit of the ever elusive American dream. If you're lucky, mention of this obligation will only pop up twice a year, once at the beginning of each academic year and once toward its end. But if, like me, you're in the middle of the summer between your junior and senior year of high school, this recurring topic starts to rear its oversized cranium as much as every other week. Once a week if your parent or guardian is a devoted viewer of the weekly local access television program that's broadcast specifically to your diasporic community—in my mom's case, TV Ayiti. Infinite times if the child of a family friend gets accepted early admission with a full ride to some elite university.

And if you're wondering, there are only three viable options for me as the first generation of my family born in this golden land of opportunity: doctor, lawyer, engineer. Fine, nurse too. That makes four. Okay, you might be able to get away with being an accountant. Point is, as an incoming senior, it's an absolute must that I start thinking about my collegiate future and beyond. All in the name of a high salary that can fill in the cracks of our fractured family and support those of us left behind in Haiti. Sisters that I have never met in person before. But they depend on our remittances. Stability. My hopes of becoming a chef don't exactly fit into these plans. Instead of a day filled with delectable meals and comforting ambience, I 'should' be thinking about how to fulfill my diasporic daughterly duty.

I try not to let my thoughts wander down this path very often. As much as I hate to imagine this version of my future, I can't deny that there are so many people who would kill to be in my place. Shoot, my sisters in Haiti would sharpen their machetes and ready them for swinging at just the whisper of a life here. I know this from the many conversations the six of us have had throughout the years. My very own Greek Haitian chorus judging their ungrateful, Americanized sister from afar.

As my thoughts flit between what I 'should' do and what I 'want' to do, my hands are working overtime to pack what I need to prepare my planned dishes. Now, I know that the mealtime is listed right there in the name, but when you're sneaking around to fulfill the desires of your heart, you have to improvise. So, my supper club will be serving breakfast items and everyone will love it, thank you very much.

One thing I've learned working for the wealthy is that you should be barely seen and never heard. It doesn't matter if you're a private chef catering a major event or a server carefully balancing trays of decadent cocktails that you're not legally old enough to be serving. Your job is to fade into the background. But a supper club is all about connection—between the diners, the food, and the chef. Everyone's voice is listened to and no one is siloed away into different sections, in theory. Even though the human experience is not one I seem to 'get' easily, it still fascinates me. My own supper club would mean I could share my love of food in a space of my own, with people who might even want to hear about it. There's also the benefit of getting my name out there as a chef—someone will have to take me seriously, even if it's not Mummy. If I'm going to make an exclusive event that has historically centered on feeding wealthy white people into something of my own, then I'm going to have to do things a little differently. And be sure my mom doesn't find out about it in the process.

When everything is securely stowed in my oversized knapsack, I leave it on the kitchen counter before walking over to Mummy's bedroom door. I crack the door open slowly and can hear the sound of running water coming from the adjoining bathroom that connects our separate rooms.

"I'm heading out now, Mummy," I say with my face pressed against my mom's bathroom door.

"Okay, cheri," she calls out to me. "I'll see you later."

I quickly head back over to my secret goods before she can get out of the shower. As I close the door behind me, I try to ignore the well of guilt sloshing around in my stomach. Sneaking around in pursuit of your dreams is never ideal, but I can't ignore the pull to follow my passion. In these last few years, I've seen my mom do everything she was 'supposed' to do. Work hard. Get injured on the job and barely receive any recovery time. Work. Grieve my dad. Keep on working. Take English classes at the community college. Work some more. Send money back to Haiti for my sisters. More working. Unenroll in English classes because she didn't have enough money to take care of our home here 'and' our family back on the island. Never stop working. And the entire time, our financial situation hasn't gotten even a little bit better. Being a chef definitely isn't what Mummy expects of me, but I'm not going to leave the visions I have for my future unfulfilled just to be pulled into an endless cycle of labor. I've seen what it looks like to do everything right and still have everything turn out wrong anyway.