Strawberry soda at night

CHAPTER 2. old memories

''It was a snowy first day of December. Those few weeks before Christmas when Sara's workplace fired her without a proper time given to adjust. It was a well known bar and she was a bartender there. Had been for a year at that point. Apparently their excuse was the need for shortening the amount of staff and she had the least hours in her contract. Thus she was let go. Legal? Or at least shady? Well, not professionally handled, that's for sure.

At that point Sara was around 4-5 months pregnant, due in around May. She hid the pregnancy from the workplace as long as possible, because she knew how her boss would feel about it. Insane if you asked me. Or anyone, really..

I had the smallest apartment possible, with the single room barely fitting me in it. I couldn't take her in and in the near future, a baby as well. But with her family shutting her out as soon as the news about the pregnancy came out, and as she decided to keep the child without properly marrying the father, she had no one to turn to. Her parents were old fashioned and strongly believed in the ways of their religion. They wouldn't say it, and Sara wouldn't admit it out loud though she knew — they were ashamed of her. It would show on her eyes as if she faded away from time to time. On top of that, it wasn't as if she wouldn't have welcomed the idea of marriage — it was the man who decided not to take part in the future with her and their baby, a decision he made on his own. We never saw him again.

For me, however, it was clear from day one that I'd stick together through it all. After all, Sara was the only one who was there for me from some point on in my life.

So, i took another couple of extra jobs and we started hunting for apartments. Week after week nothing came along. It was always too expensive or too small, too dangerous of an area or we'd end up not getting picked by the landlords.

Always something.

One terribly snowy evening only few days before Christmas I walked the streets of the north-west side of the city. We grew desperate. We'd even go through bulletin boards of any store that had one around the entrance, and had no idea just how lucky we'd end up getting soon by sheer chance.

On one board I saw a note written by hand. — One room available — it said. Once we arrived, it turned out to be a decent sized one bedroom apartment with a joined living room/kitchen area. The old lady, Miriam, slept on a futon in front of a stove and would rent out the only bedroom — if only someone would help around the apartment and other household tasks. Lady Miriam had a curly grey hair and a limp as she walked. A cane helped her to move around.

No one would take the offer, such living arrangement. Funny enough, we all seemed to be needing something at the time. Lady Miriam desperately needed help around the house and with the expenses. Enough to give up her only bedroom to someone else. Sara and her baby on the way needed a safe and steady environment. And me? I just wanted the people I cared about to live happily. That's all.

And the deal was made. I slept on a futon on the other side of the living area and Sara and her baby on the way, Tom, took the only bedroom. From then on, slowly, we became what each of us craved for whether we admitted it or not — a family. One that had each others back. One I could greet when I opened the door. A full house.

And it's the one thing I'll cherish forever.''

Eva reached the low apartment building, only two storey high. The front doors were directly outside, and their apartment was on the ground level. Only a brick wall and a metal gate surrounding the apartment building. The narrow street only fit for one car at a time. The utility poles and streetlights which turned more dim and deeper yellow, some flickering, the closer she got and the further from the centre of the city she travelled.