Chapter 15 - The Claim in My Mother's Name
Mom had emailed the university twenty minutes before my review. She said I'd asked her to handle my account because I was emotionally overwhelmed and had decided to take a year off.
She hadn't signed my name this time. She'd signed hers.
Ms. Ward forwarded the statement to me because it directly concerned my case. She didn't ask me to attack my mother. She asked if there was independent material showing my intention at the time of the withdrawal.
I sent my accepted housing preference form, dated the previous week, and the note from my manager confirming I had requested fewer shifts beginning in August. Talia had a photograph of me holding the Lakebridge welcome packet on May twenty-sixth. It wasn't proof of what happened at the computer, but it supported what I'd been planning.
The university would evaluate the conflict. The committee extended the hold through Thursday while it checked with its scholarship director. I still couldn't breathe normally.
That afternoon Natasha called with an update. Dana had returned the three-hundred-dollar deposit through the payment service. "She wrote that you were unavailable," Natasha said. "I'm relieved, but I thought you deserved to know."
I sat down on the curb outside the cafe. My mother had finally corrected one wrong thing without making me do it for her. I wanted that to mean everything was changing. It was only one action.
Simone picked me up after work and asked whether I wanted to talk.
"I keep wondering if getting my scholarship back makes me cruel," I admitted.
"Imagine Cleo wins something ten years from now," she said. "Would you want her to throw it away so you could rest?"
"No."
"Then why is that what you're expected to call love?"
May you like
I didn't have an answer. At home I found a voicemail from the scholarship director, recorded while I'd been working.
"Zarya, this is Dr. Henson. We have reached a decision on the disputed withdrawal. Please call me before noon tomorrow."
