Chapter 25 - Maya’s future
Maya entered nursing school.
She did it without my money.
At first.
She won a state workforce scholarship.
Her diner employer gave flexible hours.
She worked.
Studied.
Complained constantly.
I admired her.
Two years after the diner incident—long after her testimony and after lawyers confirmed there was no remaining evidentiary issue—I asked:
“Do you have student debt?”
She looked suspicious.
“Why?”
“I am curious.”
“That’s never safe with you.”
“Answer.”
“Some.”
“How much?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll do something weird.”
Fair.
I did not pay it.
Instead, I funded a scholarship program through an existing community foundation.
Independent committee.
Open applications.
Students in nursing, respiratory therapy, elder care, and allied health.
No guarantee for Maya.
She was ineligible the first year because she was already too far into her program.
She laughed when she learned.
“You made a scholarship I can’t get?”
“Apparently.”
“Rich people really are weird.”
“Repeatedly established.”
The next year, after she entered an eligible advanced certificate program, she applied.
The independent committee selected her.
Not because of me.
I did not participate.
That was the only way I wanted it.
By then, Maya called me once a month.
Usually to complain that I skipped lunch.
I told her:
“You are becoming professionally annoying.”
May you like
She said:
“Training.”
