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"Stevie, honey, ma has to go to the hospital. I've got to go work right now," Sarah Rogers said as she knelt to face her boy of seven and put his wispy blonde hair back into place. "I need you to do something for me."
He let a big, toothless grin spread out across his young face. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good man," she praised, taking an envelope from her apron pocket. She held it before her son who reached out to grab it. Sarah snatched it back.
"Wait just a moment so that I can explain to you what I need you to do, dear," she said with a voice as soft as a feather.
"Sorry, ma'am," he apologized, putting his hands behind his back. Sarah giggled, proud that she had tased him right so far.
"Good man," she used her common words of praise. "Do you remember Mrs. Applegate just four blocks from here?"
"Yes ma'am," Steve said. Just as his mother was about to speak again, his eyes lit up and he did the talking instead. "Is this about my new school?"
Sarah laughed, "Yes, son. This is about your new school," she told him, placing the envelope in his hands. "I need you to put this directly into her hands. It has all the money you need to get into school."
"Yes ma'am," he promised with a nod of his head.
"Don't stop for any reason and hold onto this letter tight. Do not let go, Steve," Sarah ordered, grasping his pale bony hands. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," he repeated, his face stern and sure.
Sarah's beautiful smile spread across her warm face. "Good man. Go on now," she said, giving him a little pay and a push towards the door.
She sighed, after she waved back at her son, and grabbed her things to go to work. She had been saving every nickel she could to save up for this. She was starving herself. Steve didn't require much food, thank God. She paid the rent and did her best with clothes. But that envelope. That 175 dollars. It would be what gave her son a better life.
He had been born sick and small. He had always been that way. They didn't have any support from Joseph. Her husband was killed in the first war. It made her sick to think about it. Joseph moves them into America to live the dream. It would be better. But as an Irish Immigrant, the only work that could be found were the factory jobs where it was even more dangerous than the military.
They didn't pay for anything. She and Joseph worked in a beef factory. Until she got pregnant. He decided it was best for her to quit and him to try to find a better job. The military should do well. But he's killed before Steve is even born.
The money may have been better, but maybe Steve was better off without Joseph as his father. The man was a true brute. She remembered many evenings where he'd leave her ravaged and beaten on the bathroom floor. She became a nurse because her son needed her. She needed to not be in harm's way at the meat factory. She needed to know how to take care of her sickly baby.
