Chapter 17: Sing in Me, Oh Muse

I: Zane

She was so disappointed and sad. I was disappointed and sad, too.

“Zane, I don’t understand: you’re not going to college?”

“I am. Just not next year. After that.”

“But you’ve been accepted at some of the best schools in the country. Brown, Columbia, Penn. I don’t understand.”

“Well, my dad says that we can’t afford it right now. That I need to work for a year and save some money and then I’ll go to college.”

“There are ways to get the money.”

What my guidance counselor didn’t know was that there weren’t ways to get the money, not for us. My father’s gambling had destroyed their finances and credit, and they hadn’t filed tax returns in several years, making them ineligible for most financial aid programs. And although the schools I was accepted to had offered generous scholarships, none of them covered enough to maintain my tuition, housing, and materials, as well as my father’s gambling addiction.