Morning in This Broken World by Katrina Kittle

Author:Katrina Kittle [Kittle, Katrina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Women, Family Life, General, Friendship
ISBN: 9781662510113
Google: bK15zwEACAAJ
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2023-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LUNA

Luna drove to work and focused on her happiness instead of her dread. Work had become a place that scared her. She felt a little guilty, though, about how good she felt at home, after work.

Home. She’d begun to think of Vivian’s as home.

Then she felt a lot guilty when she realized yesterday had been the second day in a row she hadn’t searched for a new apartment—no classifieds, no phone calls, no drive-bys. Applications cost money, and then if she didn’t get approved, that was money she’d just thrown down the toilet. As soon as people discovered her eviction, they refused to rent to her, even if she explained about her husband’s job, about COVID, about any of it. Each rejection was another twenty-five or fifty dollars lost and socked her in the gut, chastising her for getting her hopes up, for feeling happy.

But she did feel happy.

For once in her life, Luna didn’t have to do everything. She didn’t do laundry anymore. Cooper did it. She wasn’t making meals. Both Cooper and Wren helped with that, with Vivian’s supervision. Or Steven and Drew brought something over. She didn’t grocery shop, or shop for anything. She had people who willingly did it for her so she didn’t have to risk exposure, so that she could protect her residents as well as her kids.

The kids were both doing well academically. Wren hated missing school, but Cooper loved remote classes. He seemed better able to focus, more relaxed, no worries about the bullies or the constant aggression. His midterm grades had been the highest she’d ever seen him earn.

Luna had time. A luxury greater than money, she thought. Or were they connected? She had time because, for once, she wasn’t constantly hustling for money.

Luna had time to reconnect with her nursing school friends—Jodi, Mandy, and James. They’d gravitated toward each other as nontraditional students, not the nineteen- and twenty-year-olds who made up the majority of the nursing classes. They’d studied together, sometimes over pumpkin pie and coffee at Frisch’s. The state of Ohio had updated regulations because of COVID, allowing nursing students nearing graduation to earn temporary licenses, so the three were now working as real nurses. Luna missed and envied them. She’d loved connecting on Zoom lately, hearing their stories.

Luna also had time to be. Just be. That truth had struck her after telling Vivian she’d wanted to be a ballerina. The next morning, as she stood in a hot shower, trying to rid herself of her wine headache, she’d remembered her childhood obsession with ballet. She’d checked out from the library the same giant coffee-table book about the American Ballet Theatre over and over again. She’d pored over the photos of those glorious costumes, the toe shoes. Oh, how she’d wanted pointe shoes! She’d also checked out albums of the ballets’ classical music: Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, and Coppélia. She’d lie on the floor in front of her parents’ stereo speakers and listen to ballets from start to finish, imagining herself dancing various roles.

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