Raising Tasha

Baepsae

Jerry

Graduate! Claire was a graduate, that discovery had me thrown off balance for a bit. She was living in a neighborhood full of delinquents barely getting by but she actually had school papers.

Life indeed had been very unfair to her, especially to her daughter but with a corrupt country like the one we lived in, one had to have connections to get to places, know people in high places to get anywhere.

'You should know people' was the common saying on the street, sad thing is that it was the reality of life. One had to know someone with authority to get anywhere in life.

But not everyone could have authority so success was for a chosen few

People like me who were born with silver spoons, we could get anything we wanted just by asking for it but for people like Claire, they had to climb right from the bottom.

Barely getting by because in the society the rich got richer while the poor... well no one cared enough to know what happened to them. That was just the way it is.

I sat in the car next to Claire wondering just how much she had put up with.

Looking at her lost in thought, an educated woman had been reduced to hawking food on the streets and now I was with her driving to a job that was below her.

I started feeling guilty at the thought, was I part of the society know for taking advantage of the weak? I felt disgusted by myself.

I would always complain whenever I did not get the latest brand, when I was late to get a custom product. Sure I knew there were people that could not afford to live like me but it had never really bothered me.

I usually just chalked it down to the poor being not working hard enough, but look at Claire. She definitely works harder than anyone I have ever met yet she suffered the worst.

My ‘hard work' that the poor were not doing was just daddy's money.

Shame filled me accompanying the guilt.

'What could I do make things better for her?' I thought to my self. When it came to Claire I was always compelled to help for reasons unknown to me.

"Next week come to work with your qualification papers." I knew I was in a better position to get her her dream job with my connections..

Claire

Does he think badly of me?

I mean, I would not blame him for looking down on me. Aside from Tasha I had not achieved anything in my life.

Self consciousness!

That was exactly what I was currently feeling, I stared outside the window to avoid looking at Jerry beside. I could tell we were roughly around the same age but he was more accomplished than I was. I was embarrassed to even face the guy which was dumb considering the fact that he was my employer.

My self esteem taking another hit.

Life had made my once high held head cower in shame. I had avoided every class reunion, deleted all contact with all my university classmates.

How could I bring myself to face them?

I was a failure!

I was the Claire with a plan! I had all my goals set, back when I had applied for a tri semester they had a thought of me as wanting to graduate early so I could get a job but that was not the case. I was expectant no way was I going to let myself become the butt of a joke.

I had graduated in absentia for the very same reason. The embarrassment, the fear of being looked down upon. I had once been voted as the one with the most potential for success at the end of our third year in university.

Where had all that potential gone? It had taken one stupid party and drunk decision to send everything tumbling down.

'What if Molly had not dragged me to that party?'

'What if I had not drunk anything that night?'

'What if I had gotten the contact details of the man I had slept with?' This one got me laughing at myself. I am not sure what difference it would make.

Maybe it would have just led to custody struggles and whatnot.

What if, what if, what if!

I went through a lot of what ifs in my mind several times a day. Would life be different, yes? Do I want a different life? Maybe. Did I want a life without Tasha in it? Definitely not!

My little girl means the whole world to me.

They say regrets come later in life and sure I had a lot of regrets but my baby was not one of them. She motivated me, gave me a reason to live on a push to work harder. To never give up.

I was living for her.

Breathing for her.

Working for her.

Who was to say that if I did not have Tasha my life would be better?

Maybe I would feel less guilty about missing meals but that was it.

I just have not gotten a chance to prove myself yet .

"Next week come to work with your qualification papers."

What!

Did I hear that right?

Jerry had asked me for my papers!

It could be considered a miracle that I hard him, I had been so lost in my well furnished house of self pity. One of those days when you blamed the world for everything wrong with you life.

“Alright, I will bring them"

Hope!

For the first time in the recent years my hope that had been lost wad coming back.

Was he doing it out of pity? Probably.

Was I going to let pride get in the way of me finally get help? Definitely not.

It would not even make sense, I had agreed to be his cook already. How worse could it get?

Besides I was not going to act like some cliché main character of some movie, suffering in silence because of pride.

That s**t may work out in the fictional world but not in real life.

In real life you accepted favours that is if you could actually get them.

Jerry was doing me a favour and I was going to accept it.

Maybe I could finally put Tasha in school.

“…”