by Bella Knight
“She can’t do that. Gotta take care of her son,” said Gina. “Be stupid to get a job where she has to pay child care. You do that online school thing as much as you can, Vetta.”
“I ain’t got no computer,” said Vetta.
Gina let out a peal of her patented laugh. “Go to a computer store, girlfriend. They got refurbished ones. Pick ‘em up for nearly nothin’ at all. Hell, they even got two-hundred-dollar ones at Wal-Mart.”
“Find a job you can do online after you get the computer,” said Becky Sue. “Learn that coding thing for free. Lotsa stuff you can learn to do.”
“Medical billing,” said Donna. “My girlfriend did that at night, coding and billing. Do that one first, and take a test, and do it at night, and that will pay for the rest of your education.”
“Good advice,” said Gina. “You gonna actually do the damn work?”
“I can,” said Vetta.
“Do it or don’t,” said Becky Sue. “Can don’t mean shit.”
“I’ll do it,” said Vetta.
“Good,” said Gina, and handed Vetta a paper. “Get some coffee, woman, then read.”
“On it,” said Vetta.
Vetta worked on the plan after lunch. She set it up, class after class. She then went looking for a used computer that was under a hundred dollars, and found one. She then went back down, got the kids on their books and things, and figured out how long it would take to get her medical billing and coding degree. Vetta called Gina, and Gina told her to compare the costs and times of online degrees, pick the top three, then call the school and get an advisor. Two of the schools would take her transfer credits, and one wouldn’t. Gina picked the cheapest school that would take her credits, after another call to Gina about accreditation. She got the school with the best accreditation that offered the identical classes in-person or online, and would take her school credit, and then went hunting for scholarships.
Vetta found mom scholarships and grants, which shocked her. She found one for medical degrees, and several need-based grants. She pulled each one up on the computer in the restaurant’s office, and sat down on her breaks to fill them out. She wrote an essay, and Kema checked it over, and helped her fix her bad sentences. She got three applications sent in on the first day, and four sent in the next. She filled out four more the day after that, then took Chad and Dee to the park before the dinner rush.
Sheriff Xenia heard about all the applying at lunch, and offered to write a letter for the scholarship and to help Vetta apply for college. Within a week, she’d been accepted into the college of her choice, and several days later she had a scholarship and a grant that covered both tuition and books for all the courses she needed for her medical billing certificate. She earned enough tips for a printer, and the diner people scraped together enough for her to get a cheap Wal-Mart laptop. She came back with a silver-blue lightweight laptop, and dug in.
Vetta sat in the corner booth, directly across from Dee, laptop open. Chad was on a school field trip, and she had an hour until she had to pick him up. Dee had her own tablet open, and her earphones on. She snapped her fingers from time to time, which was strange since the little girl was listening to a podcast on, it sounded like, the solar system. Vetta ignored the podcast, and concentrated on the Introduction to Health class she needed to pass, a sealed cup of coffee at her right hand, and prepared that way so she wouldn’t spill it. Dee had a sealed glass of apple juice.
Frank came in with Anika. He picked her up from school, and was delighted to pay Dee to watch her for two and a half more hours until he could pick her up. Anika loved Dee and Chad, and Kema, Tallee, and Vetta took turns taking them to the park after school when it wasn’t too hot, cold, windy, rainy, or snowy.
“I’m starving,” said Anika.
Dee pushed over a sealed container of apples, raisins, and nuts. “Apple or orange juice?”
“Orange,” said Anika, reaching for the fruit.
“Nuh-uh,” said Dee. “Wash hands first. We’ve got the kids’ washroom now.” The washroom had small toilets and sinks, a baby changing station, and a nursing chair.
“On it,” said Anika. Dee followed her to put in Anika’s order with her mom, Kema.
Vetta watched the video, and made sure the girls made it back and started on snacks and the orange juice Kema brought over. Frank bought one of Henry’s loaded tablets, and the girls happily designed and built a garden with the right kinds of trees, insects, and animals in a special 3D game.
Kema watched the girls when Vetta walked to the preschool to pick up Chad. The class had visited a farm on the edge of town. Her little boy talked nearly without breathing, mostly about milking a cow, his first brush with goat cheese (which wasn’t yucky), and real horses. The black one was his favorite. She got him his drink and snack. The girls had moved on to watching solar system videos.
Once they’d had snacks, Vetta took them to the park, along with their plastic bottles she’d filled with icy filtered water. They ran, jumped, swung, climbed, and made Vetta feel ancient, even though she was only in her twenties. She read from a medical textbook on her cell phone with one eye while she kept the other on the kids.
Frank came and sat down next to her. “Mrs. Pink Pants came back,” he said.
Vetta put away her phone. “She did?”
“Thought she had mono, or the bird flu. Dr. Orvits and I diagnosed her with the regular kind of flu, and sent her home with over-the-counter medications.” Patient Pink Pants wore pants with flamingos, pants with hearts, or florescent pink pants. She came in once a week for her “I’m-dying” medical consultations. Her hypochondrium was a problem, as she was on a fixed income and tended to go far off her insurance plan’s allowable visits.
“I’m glad Mrs. Pink Pants is alright,” said Vetta. “I haven’t learned her code yet. Just got started on Introduction to Health.”
“Congratulations!” he said.
She handed him a bottled water and a health bar. “They’ve only been at it for twenty minutes, and I’m sure you’re hungry.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m really glad you got in.”
Vetta laughed. “It’s an online medical coding and billing certificate. I couldn’t have done it without the single-mother scholarship and grant Kema and Gina helped me get, and Sheriff Xenia.”
“Xenia?” said Frank. “That’s one hell of a name. What’s her last name?”
“Popa-something,” said Vetta. “Something Greek. Everyone just calls her Sheriff Xenia. She’s a Valkyrie.”
“A what? Like the ladies with blonde hair and swords?”
Vetta laughed. “The Valkyries are a female Harley club. They like to practice fighting with the Society for Creative Anachronism. They perform in Vegas during the Renaissance Faire.”
“Wow,” said Frank. “If I had any money left over from Anika, the Mysterious Dollar Sink, I’d pay to see that.”
Vetta laughed. “Chad’s my dollar sink. Preschool, clothes, shoes, insurance. Thank the universe that Tallee and Kema let me work in their diner, and pay full medical, or we’d be sunk.”
Frank tilted his head. “Hence the medical coding and billing degree.”
“Oh, that’s just to start,” said Vetta. “Then it’s my two-year nursing degree, paid for with grants, scholarships, and my medical billing and coding work, probably at three in the morning while Chad’s asleep, if I work online, or at an insurance company, hospital, clinic, or doctor’s office.” She groaned. “I’d rather work from home, because if not, then there’s child care.”
“We can share the cost,” said Frank. “Don’t worry about it now.”
Vetta nodded. “Gina, my sponsor, she says that.” She froze. She hadn’t told Frank about her sobriety.
“You’re in an anonymous program,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“I am; too,” said Frank. “How I screwed up my marriage. Two years, gambling. Then, Roxanne walked out, and said she didn’t want Anika or me. I had to get
my shit together or lose my daughter.”
“Eight months,” said Vetta, in a little voice. “Almost nine. Almost lost Chad.” She sighed. “Alcoholic-addict.”
“An alcoholic is an addict,” said Frank. “And, this is probably the number one state for both our addictions.”
“Amen,” said Vetta.
“So, we can’t date for four months,” he said.
“What? Um, yes, that’s correct. It’s not a real rule, you know, just a lotta common sense. We’re too crazy early on to make good decisions.” She looked at the plane of his cheek out of the corner of her eye. “You want to date me?”
“Maybe,” he said. He finished his water, and pocketed the bottle and the wrapper from his health bar. He grinned at her.
Chad ran over. “Mama! Hungry!”
“You’d still be hungry after one of those fancy four-course meals,” said Vetta.
“I’m with the boy,” said Frank. He stood up. “Let’s go eat like pigs.”
“Yay!” said Chad. He called over the girls, who were hanging upside-down, and they all walked back to the diner.
Vetta and Chad ate free at the diner, and Tallee and Kema gave a huge discount to Frank and Anika because they were renters too. So, the kids had spaghetti and meatballs. Vetta had a grilled chicken sandwich and roasted baby potatoes, and Frank said that sounded so good that he ordered the same. Vetta wolfed down her food and helped with the dinner rush, as Anika, Dee, and Chad all told Frank about their day. After dinner, they all went to Frank’s house.
The apartment was done in what Vetta called Early Boy, with fat, soft gray furniture, milk-crate shelves, and a flat-screen TV across one wall. They pulled out a dice game with cards whose rules neither parent understood, and Frank put on decaf coffee and read a medical journal while Vetta worked on both her tablet and her cell to complete her homework.
The kids started getting a little whiny, so Frank hugged everyone goodnight. Vetta walked Dee and Chad back to the diner, and let herself be talked into a small dish of ice cream for the kids.
Kema took Dee back, and Vetta walked a bouncy Chad back home. He swore he wasn’t tired, but Vetta new better. She got him showered and into his tiger pajamas, and read from a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book.
Vetta took her own shower, put on her pajamas, and poured a peppermint soak into a special foot-soaking tray, and poured in hot water. She sat and soaked as she answered questions on a quiz. She dried off her feet, dumped the water down the tub, and slid into sleep.
In the morning, she did it all again. Breakfast in the diner at six, handle the first breakfast rush. Then, get Chad off to the daycare, then handle the second breakfast rush, and take a break, then study. Back for early lunch rush, then the real rush, then her own lunch. Study in the afternoon with Dee. Pick up Chad. Take the kids to the park. Get dinner. Get Chad cleaned up, let him watch a cartoon. A ninja or superhero book, then Chad would sleep. Hot water on the feet, and more studying until she fell asleep in bed, cell phone still on her stomach.
Although she was a zombie, she knew she was super lucky. All her and Chad’s meals were free at the diner. Chad got daily exercise. They had insurance, so he had his teeth looked after, a checkup for school, even went a bout with the flu and made it through fine. Chad was happy, talked incessantly with Dee about every damn thing under the sun. Sometimes, Tallee or Kema would take Chad somewhere, like the store or the park, and leave Vetta to study, or even sneak in a half-hour nap.
She thought about quitting all the time. She needed sleep, uninterrupted sleep, blessed sleep. She needed to dream, and not about forgetting which pie to bring to a table. She needed for her feet and back to stop hurting, for her eyes to stop burning with staring at computer screens. Whenever she had that thought, she looked at Chad’s smiling face. She listened to his laugh in her mind.
Increasingly, she also thought of Frank. He was kind to his daughter and made her laugh. He baked chocolate chip cookies with the kids, and he went on long, rambling walks with them. He told her stories about pink pant ladies, and families looking forward to soccer or football or karate, or some things some of the elderly ladies with no filters said in the doctor’s office that made him laugh. She wondered if she wanted to do medical billing in a doctor’s office, an insurance office where she wouldn’t have to deal with patients directly, or at home at night. She would realize then, that in less than a year, she wouldn’t be filling up salt shakers and asking if you wanted ice cream with your pie.
Vetta liked the diner, the farmers, the up-at-dawn little old ladies, and the truckers passing through. Then there were the businesspeople wolfing down breakfast before opening a shop or working at the insurance company down the street, or the bank. Then, the old ladies who sat and gossiped over tea, coffee, and pie. She loved their often-hilarious conversations. The cops and truckers and businesspeople in for lunch. Then kids after school, looking for pie, ice cream, and a place to do homework at the counter or at a booth. Then, the farmers and tradespeople, families and singles in for a good meal, parents too hurried and busy to cook. Then the post-movie or game people, but she didn’t work nights to see that. The diner closed at ten, with a night shift cook and a counterperson to give Kema and Tallee a rest. Then, Tallee or Kema would count the tills, close up, and the night shift would clean up. Then, the flow of humanity and pie would start up all over again.
Vetta wondered if she’d miss the diner when she changed to medical billing. Then, as the weeks wore on, she became too tired to care.
“Defend your people, or you have no worth as a warrior.”
2
New Life
“Bringing a child into the world is wonderful, and terrifying.”
Katya sat still at her desk. Her lovely babies, Ivan and Luka, were downstairs with Mimi, April, and Jax, a new Wolfpack member with four very active brothers. So, the Wyandot teen knew how to corral little boys. Aiden and Kiya were down there, too, along with Mimi’s daughter, Ree. She heard them argue about coats, hats, and gloves. Winter in Vegas was short, and mainly had gusty, chilly winds coming off the mountains.
Katya knew she had to concentrate. Bao’s business creating educational materials for Mandarin speakers and for First Nation peoples intrigued her, so much so; that she wanted to get into curriculum design. Yes, she could do Russian materials. There were many thousands of Russians living in the United States, and all over the world. That was the easy part. The hard part was to create material that kids devoured, and didn’t consider it to be a chore to learn from it. She also loved the links in Bao’s books to songs, stories, videos, and educational games the Wolfpack created for her.
But, first she must get her education and bilingual education degree with an emphasis in curriculum design. So, although it broke her heart to be separated from her children for even an hour, she divided her day up into breakfast, playtime with the children in the morning, and listening to online lectures, reading books and articles, and writing papers, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other students.
She had seen Wraith with her headset, how she coordinated everything, and she ruthlessly coordinated her life as well. She listened to lectures while cleaning and doing yoga. She wrote papers using a headset and transcription software. The mistakes the software made kept her laughing.
She researched while moving about, keeping the baby growing inside her happy and healthy for the young paramedic and firefighter couple. The couple met over the firefighter’s broken arm after a fall, and fell in deep love. Watching Ben and Valentina during the ultrasounds, and their happiness and tears, drove her to make this baby as healthy as possible. So, healthy soups and stews, and many salads and sandwiches from Nantan’s hydroponic vertical garden.
Soon, she would give birth. She was getting to the exhausted, weepy, sore stage of the pregnancy. Her previous urge to make love to her husband at every opportunity had waned as her back bowed. She fought the urge to nap nearly every second. So, she learned, she slept in the morning and
afternoons, and she put her precious babies in the care of the Wolfpack —she loved them all, really, even the gawky Jax who was recovering from the loss of one of his brothers overseas, an army sergeant killed by a roadside bomb.
Jax had not done any schoolwork for over a year, due to being wrapped up in grief. But, the females pushed and pushed him, forcing him to eat, to drink, to play on the floor with the babies, to take a break, to do his schoolwork. When they were there, no one let Katya do anything in her own house. They played with the children, served up countless bowls of soup, salads, and sandwiches, did the housework downstairs, and laughed constantly. Their cheerful faces made Katya so very happy.
And yet, she mourned. She knew this baby would go to the couple, and it made her truly happy. She loved her Elena, doing so well in school, her surgeries far behind her. Elena excelled at soccer, and thrived on competition. Her gorgeous daughter was in the science and math club, and brought home straight A’s every time. And Ivan, he was a handful. He demanded love, attention, to play, to explore. Luka had the hugest heart, and just put up with Ivan’s antics. Luka also deeply loved Ree. He brought her toys and cookies, and played with her when Ivan was on one of his high-and-mighty kicks.
She knew that another child, at this time, would disrupt the delicate balance of the household. The children were healthy and happy. Also, where would they put the child? Hang a cradle from the ceiling? Katya did not want to move. Her neighborhood had women and men of every persuasion. There was the Yemeni couple down the street, who had taken in a family of Syrian refugees. The whole neighborhood was involved in helping Yusef, Amaya, and the little three-year-old Ali and two-year-old Khaled, both boys. Amaya and Yusef had lost two girls in the war. In fact, the reason why they went out to the park at that time was to give Ivan and Luka a chance to play with boys their age. All four boys would attack the jungle gym as if it were a mountain, with its climbing wall, rope bridge, and its little fort.