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There were worst things in the world than being an IT specialist, and that was something that I needed to keep reminding myself of. I also had to remind myself that we all had bad days, and I couldn’t let my one bad day dictate the rest of my week. If I did, then that one day could lead into one week that could lead into one month, and so forth, a trap that I had no desire to find myself in.
Besides, like most of the people on the planet, I needed my job. In fact, I actually needed two, but with my current contract having me on-call most of the time, I couldn’t see another job being okay with that. Employers needed dependable workers, and though I was dependable, my current employment made it impossible to seek out a second means of income.
Plus, there were only twenty-four hours in a day, and it’d kill me if I couldn’t visit my grandfather as regularly as I did now. Not only had he always been there for me, but he had helped raise me when I’d been a child, and being his only grandchild, we had spent a lot of time together. My grandfather had been the storyteller in my life, and the lessons that he’d taught me over the years were invaluable.
As for my parents, Ivan and Katerina Volkov, they’d been the best parents that a little girl could have ever asked for. They’d been attentive, loving, and both had the patience of a saint, never pushing me aside for something more important. Granted, I’d been their only child, so they hadn’t had to divide their attention between more than one kid, but still. Every day of my childhood, I’d felt loved and wanted, and that was so important for a child.
I could also remember how I used to think that my parents had the coolest jobs ever. Together, they’d owned a Russian specialty shop, and they’d sold art, ceramics, toys, and whatever else that you could find in a novelty store. Plus, it’d all been from Russian culture, and whenever they’d get a new piece in, Dedushka Stepan would tell me the story behind it. As for Babushka Anna, my grandmother had been a little bit more serious than my grandfather. While my grandfather had filled my head with incredible stories, my grandmother had instilled responsibility in me. I’d gotten the best of both worlds, and I knew how lucky I was to have had that kind of childhood.
Nevertheless, ten years ago, I’d been a twenty-three-year-old college graduate, ready to take on the world, never suspecting that my ideal life would be turned upside down with the robbery and murder of both my parents. They’d been doing inventory at the shop one night, and a dope fiend had broken in, shooting and killing them both, then robbing the place of what they could get cash for. It’d been senseless, traumatic, and crippling.
Unfortunately, things had only gotten worse when my grandmother had passed away from a heart attack only three months later. She’d lost her only daughter, and the heartbreak of it had been too much for her to bear. Especially, once it’d come to light that my parents had been in some serious debt. Unbeknownst to the rest of the family, the shop hadn’t been doing that great for years, and when the dust had settled on my parents’ graves, we’d lost everything.
So, after the death of my grandmother, I had ended up moving in with my grandfather, and I still lived in the house that he had loved my grandmother and raised my mother in. Now, while there were only a few years left on the mortgage, for the past ten years, I’d been working my ass off, using my degree to the best of my ability, and making sure that my grandfather wouldn’t lose his house since he no longer had the help of my parents.
Now, as for the paternal side of my family, my father’s parents hadn’t approved of him moving to America to make a new life for himself, so as soon as he’d gotten on the plane, they had disowned him, and he had returned the favor ten-fold. In fact, I didn’t even know the names of his parents or if he even had any siblings, and while I hadn’t felt the absence as a child, I’d felt it when they had passed away. I could have used the extra support when they’d been killed, and more so when my grandmother had joined them in Heaven.
Still, even as dark as that time in my life had been, life had added to the heartbreak three years ago. My parents hadn’t had me young, making them fifty-three when I’d lost them. So, ten years later, my grandfather was eighty-three, and three years ago, he’d taken a nasty fall, and I’d had no choice but to put him into an assisted-living home. While I had fought to keep him with me, he’d chosen to be pragmatic over the situation, and he had forced me to acknowledge that he needed more help than I was going to be able to give him with the crazy hours that I worked. It’d broken my heart, and if I was being completely honest, it still broke my heart to have him not living with me. Yeah, he was treated well and had friends, but it’d always been us, and I felt the absence like a hole in my heart.
Now, while my grandfather’s social security helped a lot with his housing costs, the rest of his expenses fell on my shoulders, and life wasn’t easy when you had only one income during a time when it took two to survive, never mind to actually enjoy life. By the time that all of my grandfather’s bills were paid for and his monthly needs were met, I barely had enough to cover my own expenses and still be able to eat out once a week.
I opened one of my desk drawers, then grabbed the bottle of aspirin that I kept there. I knew that I shouldn’t be complaining, but sometimes a girl just needed to purge all the negativity, or else become a viral clip of her losing her shit on some unsuspecting citizen. I did not want to become the person that had a mental breakdown at the gas station because the credit card machine was down.
Yeah, no thanks.
After taking two tablets, then washing them down with some room-temperature water, I cracked my neck, then stretched my shoulders, the hours of sitting taking their toll. Luckily, most of my job could be done remotely from my workstation, but there were times when I had to physically address a situation, and IT really was a thankless field. Nonetheless, I loved technology and the way that it was constantly evolving, and I was always ready to learn something new.
“These just came for you.”
I turned at my co-worker’s voice and saw that she was carrying a vase of pretty spring flowers. “What?”
Greta placed the vase on my desk, smiling down at me. “Secret admirer?”
I rolled my eyes at that.
I wish.
My love life was colder than a butcher shop, and if I had a secret admirer, then he was very good at staying a secret because I couldn’t recall the last time that I’d been out on a date. Truth be told, if anyone was doing inventory, my life was rather sad when you thought about it.
“Nope,” I answered, looking over the flowers for a card.
“That’s a shame,” Greta sighed. “We could use the excitement around here.”
While I’d been working for the Tremaine Group for ten years, Greta had only started working here two years ago, so she was still optimistic about the place. Now, while I wasn’t complaining about the company per se, Greta was going to learn eventually that our clients’ demands were way more important than whatever we thought.
When I finally found the card hidden behind a stunning daisy, I plucked it from the holder, then opened it, wondering who in the hell would send me flowers of any kind. Though I got along with lots of people and even considered a couple of my co-workers as friends, it wasn’t my birthday, work anniversary, or anything like that. There wasn’t one thing in my life worth celebrating right now, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a simple mix-up with the names.
Pulling the card out of the little envelope, it simply read ‘Thank you. You’re just what I needed’, and my mind immediately began racing with the last few companies that I’d helped over the past week. It wasn’t unheard of for a company to send us thank you cards or whatever, so it was quite possible that this was for helping someone avert a technological nightmare recently.
“What’s it say?”
“It’s just a thank you card,” I answered, stuffing the card back into the envelope. “I guess someone out there appreciates us after all.”
“In twenty years, when everything is technologically based, we’re going to be superheroes,” she predicted, her twenty-two-year-old dreams shining through.
I grinned. “Already designing your cape?’
“I designed it the day that I graduated with my degree,” she quipped.
