Ancilla: SOUNDBITE EDITION. (SERIALIZED, MATURE SECTIONS MARKED)

Chesed (PART 4, has 1665 words)

The living room is silent except for the clanks and hisses of the ancient steam heater coming to life, and of my pen scratching paper.

It's so delightfully warm in here. I don't even need to wear four layers of clothing or a coat when I visit, despite the recent cold snap. So different from my own apartment.

"You should be back in college," he says softly. "I love coming up with essay assignments for you to entertain you, but ultimately, your mind needs more challenging than can come from one tutor who doesn't even have any formal ties to academia beyond a master's degree in library science. You need to use your academic inclinations. Did you envision a lifetime of telemarketing when you were a girl, dreaming of what you would be when you grew up?"

"College professor," I reply shortly. This isn't a subject I like to talk about much.

"You won't get that without a degree - preferably a doctoral degree, for most colleges and universities. You need to get back into college."

"Can't do that without money. Can't get money without financial aid. According to Uncle Sam, I can't get financial aid until I'm classified as financially independent, which can't happen until I'm a grad student, a veteran, a head of household, married, or twenty-four years old. That's what my college's financial aid office told me when I begged for emergency assistance after my parents disowned me, anyway." Not that I'd expected much success - the few students I know who received any kind of financial aid told me horror stories about how hard it was to get either need-based scholarships or help applying for federal assistance at our college - but I'd had to try anyway. And at least it had bought me a couple of weeks more time. That was time enough for my sisters in the sorority to brainstorm ways to find me new accommodations since only students could live in the dorms. "I won't be twenty-four for another two years. I can't skip straight past an undergraduate degree to apply to a grad school. The other options are not options."

"Two years is not that much time; we've been together for nearly a year, and it doesn't feel like much time at all, does it?" he asks in a quiet voice. "In the meantime, you might want to try attending the local university. The spring semester has already started, so it's a little too late for now, but you could apply to enroll in summer classes, or to start in the fall. One course would cost approximately three hundred dollars in tuition. That's not so bad. You haven't told me how much your monthly rent is, but it probably costs more than that per month. Taking a course or two every semester would help you build up your transcript and maybe get a few academic references, and you could use those to get a scholarship somewhere, or at least a place in the honors program of one of the better state universities here."

"I can't even afford groceries most of the time," I snap. "How can I possibly afford college tuition?"

He takes a deep breath. "You could move in with me."

My jaw drops.

"You're not serious."

"I'm very serious. It's something I've been stewing over for some time, now. I definitely have my reservations, but the arrangement makes sense from a purely financial perspective. Take whatever money you spend on your apartment rent now, and you can use it to pay for college. Factor in what you'd save on your other monthly expenses, and you could probably even manage to come up with enough tuition money to attend college full-time, if you opt for a monthly tuition payment plan - although between the demands of your job and the readings and occult study I plan to keep giving you, I'd recommend taking no more than two courses at a time, to make sure you will still have time for some sleep at night. There are other practical benefits as well. Food, for instance. It worries me that I can still count your ribs just by looking at them. I give you food for your cupboard, but do you eat any of it? Then there's the neighborhood you live in. I imagine you would prefer to live on a street that did not have gunfire waking you up on random nights. I know I'd prefer you to live on a street that lacked gunfire. For some strange reason, I like the idea of you not getting shot."