CHAPTER 9-CONGRATULATIONS

Anna's POV

I stared at my screen until the words blurred out.

The appointment letter was real!.

“Eco-City Project lead. Reporting directly to Andreas Mo Ting.

Start date: tomorrow”.

My fingers tightened around the phone until the edges dug into my palm. I opened my mouth, closed it, then pressed the back of my hand hard against my lips, my chest rising too fast. I stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen for a long minute before my legs finally moved.

Amyra was still awake, sitting up in bed with a crayon in her hand when I pushed the door open. She took one look at my face and scrambled to her knees.

“Mommy?”

I sat on the edge of the mattress and turned the phone toward her. Her eyes moved across the short letter. Then she threw both arms around my neck so hard I almost lost my balance.

“You got it!” Her voice rang bright and high. “You’re going to build the beautiful buildings! I told Grandma you would!”

I held her tightly, one hand cupping the back of her head. My throat locked. I swallowed once, then again, until the pressure behind my eyes eased enough to speak.

“Yes, baby. I got it.”

She pulled back just far enough to grin at me, gap-toothed and glowing. “Can I tell Grandma and Grandpa? Please?”

I nodded. She scrambled off the bed and ran down the short hallway barefoot, already calling their names at the top of her voice.

Mama and Papa arrived within twenty minutes. Mama still wore her boutique apron, the one with the small ink stain near the pocket. Papa smelled faintly of the pharmacy. The moment they stepped inside, Amyra grabbed both their hands and dragged them toward me.

“Mommy got the big job! She’s going to build buildings that touch the sky!”

Mama’s hands flew to her mouth. Papa’s eyes shone. He reached out and rested a heavy, warm palm on my shoulder. I covered his hand with mine and squeezed once, hard. No one spoke for a moment. The small living room felt suddenly full of people who had waited too long for good news.

Mama recovered first. She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with the good plates, the ones we only used for New Year. Papa opened the bottle of juice we had been saving since last autumn. Amyra insisted on arranging her latest hospital drawings in a careful circle on the table like decorations. We sat together around the small surface, knees almost touching.

I watched them move. Mama kept glancing at me as if she needed to confirm I was still real. Every time our eyes met she gave a small, quick nod. Papa kept refilling my glass even though I had barely touched it. Amyra chattered about the garden she would plant on the roof of the first building I designed. Every few sentences she leaned against my side and whispered, “You’re going to be the boss nurse of the buildings, remember?”

I nodded each time. The same tight pressure returned to my throat. I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth until it passed.

While they talked, pieces of the last five years drifted through my mind without invitation. The rejections that arrived by email at 2 a.m., the subject lines always polite and final. The interviews that ended with practiced smiles and the same sentence, “we will be in touch”. The nights I sat on this same kitchen floor after Amyra fell asleep, calculator open, adding the boutique earnings to the pharmacy income and still coming up short for the next hospital visit. The way I had stood in front of the bathroom mirror for weeks practicing introductions until my voice no longer shook on the word “experience.” All of it sat quietly under the sound of my family’s laughter tonight.

Papa raised his glass. “To Anna,” he said simply.

Mama’s eyes were bright. She blinked hard and lifted her own. “To better days.”

Amyra raised her small cup of juice with both hands, careful not to spill. “To Mommy’s beautiful buildings!”

I lifted my glass. The rim clicked against theirs as I drank. The sweetness sat on my tongue longer than it should have. My free hand rested on the table, fingers curled tight against the wood.

Later, after Papa and Mama left with promises to close the shops early so they could walk me to the bus stop in the morning, I bathed Amyra. She talked the entire time about the exact color of the first building I would design. Blue, she decided. With rainbow windows so the sick children could see something pretty. I listened, rinsing the soap from her hair, and let her voice fill the small bathroom.

I tucked her in and stayed until her breathing evened out, one small hand resting over her chest as always. I smoothed the blanket once more, then walked back to the kitchen.

The apartment was quiet again. I opened the appointment letter on my phone and read it a second time, then a third. The words had not changed. Tomorrow I would walk back into that glass tower. Tomorrow I would sit under the same eyes that still unsettled me. Tomorrow I would start the job I had needed for so long.

I set the phone face down on the table. My hands finally stilled.

A dream finally comes true.

Tomorrow is my first day at Mo Ting Global.