Nora. Patters.
Nora Patters was a Greek, skinny, short, and pale white woman. When she didn't color her hair her natural long hair was a beautiful dark brown. She was one of the happiest women you would ever meet in your life. She had a huge heart, a smile that made everyone's day, and her sweet loud voice was sure to be heard from a mile afar. Her sweetness was over the top, and the love she had for others was unbelievable. She would leave her skin bear for someone in need, and always lent a hand wherever needed. Nora came from a strong Greek background. Both of her parents Kristos and Vasilyki were born in Greece and raised their children in the Grecian culture and religion. Nora was the second oldest of 4 children in the Patters family. Her eldest brother Galen, her younger sister Sula, and the youngest sibling her brother Gailen named after the first brother who had passed away not long after birth. Sula, Nora's sister passed away in her 30's after a tragic vehicle accident. Out of the 4 siblings the only 2 left was Nora, and her youngest brother Gailen. Little did anyone know that soon Gailen would be the only Patters child left.
Nora lived a good yet difficult life. She worked as an employee at Eiffell Hospital for years upon years; she married an American only to divorce a few years later under unfortunate circumstances. The only good thing she got out of it was her 2 children. Maya and Sara, her girls were her entire world. After her divorce she turned into a workaholic to support herself and her children while living with her parents in their house. That was Nora's life, working at the hospital and raising her children. Work pretty much consumed her life, her children barely saw her because she worked nonstop. "Money doesn't grow off of trees." is what she said a lot after hearing, "Mom, we miss you. When is your next day off?" Though her children understood, they still missed their mother.
Nora dated, but not much. Many told her she could have any man she wanted. And it was true; she was a beautiful, smart, independent woman. She would have given any man a run for his money. Any man would have been the luckiest in the world to have Nora for a wife. She wasn't interested in re-marrying though. After her divorce, re-marrying was the last thing on her mind. Her first relationship would have been successful if her oldest daughter Maya had approved. "I don't like him; he's not good enough for you." Maya would always say. So Nora listened and broke it off. The next relationship was nothing but absolute trouble. Nora had spent 5 years with her next relationship. The first year or 2 was fine. He seemed to be an appropriate man, and an acceptable match for Nora. After the second year he proposed to her and she accepted. And at that point in time so did her children, even Maya. Not long after however, he started showing his true colors. He became needy for Nora's attention, he became jealous, and severely over protective to her children. Maya started noticing small things as time passed and attempted to tell her mother, "There's something weird about Dennis. I just have this horrible gut feeling." But after the second year Nora told her she's overreacting, that she was just upset because she felt like he was trying to take her real father's place. "Well, yes. I am not his child and not only do I not need to be spoken to like I'm 5 but I don't appreciate him treating me like I'm his daughter. I have a dad and he's not it.' Maya said the first time. After that conversation, the situation worsened severely over the next three years and their relationship became dangerous to the point that Nora didn't know how to get rid of this man.
That relationship ended harsh, the last relationship was short lived. Fenton was an acceptable man who had a good job, and had 2 children around the same age as Nora's, and treated them well. At the end however it didn't last and after that, Nora said enough is enough I'm done with men. After that, Nora focused on her job, her children and helped her parents with whatever bills she was able to help with. As years passed her children grew up, Maya at this point was almost out of high school, and Sara moving swiftly through elementary school. The next difficulty Nora faced was dealing with her oldest daughter Maya. Nora and Maya had a pretty good relationship for the first few years after her father was forced to leave. Because for the first few years it was only the 3 ladies. Being Maya didn't have many friends, she wasn't interested in boys at that point in her life, and her sister Sara was still too young to have regular conversations. So the closest thing to a female friend was her mother. For the longest time whatever problem Maya faced she would go to her mother. Whatever bad situation occurred and Maya felt she was in a sticky situation the first person she would go to was her mother. At that point in time Nora was not a mother in Maya's eyes. She was her counselor, her teacher, and more importantly her friend. Being a friend to your child is not bad, but when it's time for the parental role to come through sometimes the parent wouldn't get the respect they deserved, and at the end sometimes if a situation escalates that's not a good thing. Now you have an uncontrollable child, or in this case an uncontrollable teen.
Maya was never the disobedient child. She was never that student to ignore her school work or push it off to the side, or that person in the group who just wanted to do what the other people in the group were doing without regard to what was right or wrong. Maya was never a follower or a leader, but that person who was up for anything but to an extent. Maya didn't like getting in trouble with her mother, school, and more than anything the law. She was a good girl that hung with a not so good crowd once she started high school. Maya had 2 groups of friends, the kids who were focused on school and spoke about what colleges they dreamt of applying to, and the other group of kids who smoked, , and drank didn't listen to their parents, and spoke about what prison they'd most likely end up if they'd get caught in trouble one more time. Maya only had but one high school boyfriend. She liked this boy a lot, they spoke about what colleges they'd like to attend, where they'd like to end up living, and what type of careers they'd see themselves attaining. Maya often brought up marriage and how she would like to be married at least by 25 that gave her enough time to figure out what she wanted in life, and how she most definitely want to bear children of her own. Maya, more than anything in the world, wanted to be a mother, and to raise children. But, when her boyfriend didn't seem so into as she did she questioned him. "I can't be with someone who doesn't want children, I love kids and I want to have a family." She said. However boyfriend had a disability and was afraid he'd pass it on to his children. "I want kids too but I don't want to pass my disability to my children. Maybe we could just adopt. We'd still be parents; it just would be biologically ours." But, Maya wasn't happy with that. It wasn't the concept of adoption that she didn't like. If she could she'd adopt an army, but she wanted to bear her own. From there on the relationship fell down. Maya was upset that he didn't want kids of his own blood. Eventually they broke up, they parted ways as acquaintances. Not long after, Maya got caught into a slump of depression. Her attitude completely changed, she distanced herself from nearly everyone. Her eating habits changed and she nearly dropped every friend she had. In so little words Maya was headed for a bad life. Nora noticed these things and started to worry about her daughter.
Nora knew Maya was at that age where she would have boyfriends, she didn't like it but she figured as long as her daughter wasn't doing anything she knew she shouldn't be doing, Nora was fine with it. The biggest thing Nora feared was her daughter having intercourse, or going off the deep end with her depression, or to be institutionalized like so many other teens Nora would see on the news. She didn't want that for her daughter. She didn't want her daughter to be taken advantage of, and hurt like any parent would fear for their child. Even though Nora never spoke to Maya about sex or emotional problems, Maya knew the basics. Being safe, when to say no, how to get out of a bad situation, and if you need to talk, then talk. After everything Maya endured as a child she had a huge wall up. A wall that she let down for only .her family and up until recently her last boyfriend. And after the couple split her wall was back up and stronger than ever before. Maya didn't ever think she could be close to another male for a very long time. Maya was just not interested in getting into another relationship. She knew many guys who were dying to date her, including her ex. But she wasn't having that at all. Maya had told her mother she felt depressed, she didn't feel her perky self anymore. She lost interest in just about everything, and eventually told her mother she wanted help, but Nora shrugged it off to thinking it was just a teen phase "You'll get over it" and just that one sentence upset Maya even more. Maya thought her mother didn't care about her. Maya started telling her mother she didn't feel worthy of life that she felt it was a waste to wake up in the morning to go to school and deal with same crap every day and coming home to be by herself was getting old. "You're always at work; I never see you or get time with you and it sucks!" Maya cried. As a solution Nora found it best fit for her daughter to get a job at the same hospital where she worked. So, Maya filled an application and got the job, "Now this way all you have to do is call me if you need me and I can meet you and come visit you on your break if you want, this will give you something to do too." Nora said. Maya agreed and worked in the hospital's kitchen delivering food to patients. For a while Maya was considerably content with her new job, but as time passed the job seemed to only mask her emotions for a short time. After that Maya had a break down and ran herself to the hospital and told them she was severely depressed, but the only thing the doctors did was call her mother to take her home. That was the end of one problem, to run into another.
One busy night at Maya's job she happens to walk into a room and met a very handsome and polite man. Maya only went to that room to greet a coworker, however left the room in a daze. Leave it to Maya to fall head over heels for a hospital patient whom she knew absolutely nothing about.
Eventually as time passed the 2 immediately felt a connection and started dating. Surprisingly Nora noticed her daughter acting more like herself again. And after a few days, Maya told Nora about this odd man she'd met in the hospital during work. "So mom, I met this guy during work, he's really cute. And his eyes are like, holy crap amazing. I think I really like him." Maya told her mother. "How old is he and where does he work?" Nora asked. Maya wasn't sure she should answer, but she did. "He's 20, and he worked at Dixie." Nora replied, "Worked? Why was he in the hospital for anyway?" Maya really didn't want to answer but she did, sort of. "He's diabetic." Maya felt that her mother knew she was hiding something, but as usual her mother ignored it. Maya noticed her mom was starting to do that a lot lately. Maya was starting to realize many things about her mother. She slept more, she worked harder, she was much more stressed, and losing an odd amount of hair, and heard her mother complain about stomach pains a lot more frequent than usual. She contributed it to her mothers work.
Moving on, Maya stayed in the relationship, as difficult as it was. It wasn't any surprise to hear her mother say how her stomach hurt, but it became more frequent and more severe. This guy she was with was not like any other. First of all he was a diabetic, Maya wasn't sure if she would be able to deal with having a sick boyfriend. Second, he was a smoker. Even though Mayas friends smoked, she was always able to leave whenever she felt like it, or just yell at them to put it out. But she wasn't going to yell at her boyfriend to stop. Third of all, he seemed to be quite a bit of a" bad boy" so to speak, which is what attracted her to him even more for some reason. That boy that all fathers warn their daughters about. Boys that always will only want 1 of 2 things. 1.) To get in your pants. 2.) To get you drunk or high, and then get in your pants.
But Maya knew this guy wasn't like that, and if he were it would either be a hit or miss because she was a still a virgin at 16 and not willing to give it up any time soon. So either he'd deal with it and stay or hit the road as soon as possible. Let's face it in the Twentieth Century what 2o year old male wants to wait till his girlfriend is 18 or wait till she is ready to marry him to do the deed. As time passed Maya told Nora the truth about why her boyfriend Klide was in the hospital, and where he went after he got out. Right away without even having met him, Nora did not like Klide at all. And to find out that her daughter had already been to this guy's house already without her even having met him, maddened Nora even more. Nora even told Maya that she didn't want her seeing him anymore, Maya however said she'd still see him, but she would limit the time she spent with Klide because she was heading towards the end of her high school year she only had one more year left. And she felt like she was falling behind. At that point Nora felt like she was losing control of her daughter. The way Maya had spoken to her worried her. Maya and Nora's relationship at this point was gone. Not by Klide, but Nora's work had consumed her and her children saw less and less of her. And whenever Nora would attempt to converse with Maya, shed turn her away. "I'm not in the mood to talk." Maya would always say. And that response seemed to be a norm anymore with Nora. "I'm not in the mood", or "I don't feel good", or I tried talking to you before and you were too busy so forget it." Nora didn't like it, and she told this to her daughter but Maya wasn't hearing it. Days had turned into weeks and Maya told her mother she was tired of working at the hospital. "They treat me like a dog and make me do things I'm clearly incapable of doing. They tell me to ask for help if I need it and when I do they tell me they're busy. Then when I try to do it myself I get yelled at for doing it wrong, like it's not my fault. I asked for help, and no one was available so I did it myself. It's not as if I left the task unfinished." So, Maya quit against her mother's wishes. After that Maya's life was up in the air and that worried Nora, but not as worried as Maya was about her mother in her mind. She noticed her mother's hair in the shower one day and it concerned Maya. However, she left alone and thought it was no big deal. Everyone sheds hair, no problem. But the fact that Nora constantly complained about pain worried Maya. Maya told her mother she should go see a doctor and as usual Nora said, "I'm fine."
A few months past and Nora received a phone call from Klide that Maya was being transported to the E.R because she had a severe panic attack, so now Nora had to take time away from her work to meet her daughter in the E.R only for her daughter to wake up and yell at her mother to bring Klide in. When Nora refused Maya got upset and cried. This made Nora mad. At the end the doctors had asked if there may be a chance that Maya could be pregnant and as a natural reaction Nora replied, "Are you kidding she's still a virgin!" But the doctor's face turned to Maya and asked, and she replied no…. hoping that the test she took would turn negative for pregnancy. Maya hadn't yet told her mother she was sexually active, she didn't think she had a reason to, but now Maya thought to herself that the next night she'd tell her mother she'd lost her virginity. A conversation Maya knew would end badly. The test ended up coming back indeed negative for pregnancy and Maya mentally sighed of relief.
The next night Maya confronted her mother about the hospital trip and admitted to feeling worried about the pregnancy test results. "Why would you need to worry about a pregnancy test? It's not like you're having sex anyway. You can't have a positive without having sex." Nora said. Maya sighed, rolled her eyes and shifted her position to face her mother. "See that's why I'm here I got to tell you something. And I'm not really sure how to come out with it because I know you'll be thoroughly pissed." Maya said. "Well, if you're up here to tell me you have been having sex you can forget it because that's just really not funny at all." Nora said. "Well, remember how I asked you to sit with me to talk about birth control? I wanted you to take me to the clinic because I didn't want to go behind your back?" Maya said. "When I said no birth control I meant it. You don't need birth control because you're not going to have sex. End of discussion." Nora replied. "Well mom, I'm sorry but I have had sex. I'm not a virgin anymore." Maya said. Nora looked at her daughter in disbelief, and laughed. Maya looked at her mother seriously. "Please tell me this is a joke right? My 16 year old daughter?" Nora said. "No joke." Maya replied. Nora sat for a moment and glared into the air. "Okay, well you have done it, now you're done don't do it again; I won't have you getting pregnant at 16 years old." Nora yelled. Maya tried telling her mother she was safe about it. And she had monitored her periods, they were normal. Nora however, just wanted the conversation to end. 2 years later while at a restaurant Maya had more news to break to her mother. This time Maya admitted to being pregnant. Nora was put into a shock.