Chapter 3 A little Background Story

When Sophia was a teenager, around the same age as her mother was as a teenager, she snuck out of the house to go to a party with her friends hoping that Betty would never find out. As always, Betty would be out of the house for the whole day. She would leave the house at five in the morning and come back at eleven at night. Thankfully, Betty had a neighbor who would watch over Sophia for her. Betty was a stay-at-home mom from the day she got married to Sophia's grandfather, Ralph, up until he died.

Therefore, Betty was able to take care of Sophia full time until Sophia turned five years old. Ralph had good life insurance. However, because he died by suicide, betty could not claim the life insurance money. Ralph had little money left in their savings account when he died. He had spent most of the money on alcohol. Six months before his death, he became an alcoholic. The more Sophia grew up, the more she resembled her mother, which caused Ralph to miss his daughter even more. Therefore, he had been secretly using alcohol to cope with missing his daughter. Betty did not find out about his heavy drinking habit until two months before his death. That was because Ralph would come home late under the pretext that work was very busy, and he was working some overtime.

So, by the time he would get home Betty would be asleep. Eventually, Ralph could no longer hide his drinking habit anymore. He would come to the house drunk. Because of alcoholism, he had lost his job a day before he took his own life. After the death, Betty had to be strong for her granddaughter. So, she decided that she would go back to work to provide for Sophia. Although it was not her fault, she felt like she had failed Sophia's mom and Ralph. She blamed herself because despite being a stay-at-home mom, she still could not discipline Sophia's mom no matter what. She then blamed herself for not being able to see how much her husband was suffering. She thought that maybe she could have helped him with rehabilitation earlier if she knew sooner. When she found out about Ralph's alcoholism problems, she tried to get him some help, but it was too late. Ralph had become too addicted to the alcohol, so he did not want to go to rehabilitation. Therefore, she was willing to do anything in her power to not fail Sophia. Luckily, she was able to find a full-time babysitting job at a hospital in the afternoon. One of the benefits of the job was that she was able to bring Sophia to the job with her. She would send Sophia to school in the morning, and then pick her to go to work with her. She was able to do that until Sophia was eight years old. Three-month-old babies to eight years old was the age limit that the hospital would allow employees to bring their children to work for free babysitting.

Once the children reached eight years old, they could no longer use the babysitting service. Once Sophia turned eight years old, Betty entrusted her to her neighbor to babysit Sophia for her. The neighbor was a good friend of Betty. She would watch Sophia every time Betty wanted to go take care of something but could not bring Sophia along. The neighbor was a stay-at-home wife and her children had already grown up and moved out. Therefore, being able to take care of Sophia was good for her. She was not bored anymore whenever her husband would go to work. She knew how challenging life was for Betty, so she only accepted fifty dollars a week payment for babysitting. Around that same time, Betty had to look for a second job because life was getting expensive. The older Sophia was getting, the more money she had to spend. So, she ended up working two full time jobs. Her neighbor, Ruby, would babysit Sophia during the weekday after she got off school while Betty Worked. Betty would then pick Sophia up after she got off from her second job. Ruby never treated Sophia badly. She treated her like she was her own daughter. Besides, Sophia was a great child growing up. Always got good grades, and never been in trouble in school. Betty only had a problem with Sophia once when went out to the party.

When Sophia reached fifteen years old, she managed to sneak out of the house to go to a friend's party. Ruby was out on vacation for a week with her husband, and Betty was at work. Since Sophia was already a teenager, and had never been into trouble before, Betty left her in the house by herself. She thought that Sophia was a responsible teenager at this point. Everything was going well as usual until Sophia let her friends convince her to go to a birthday party on a Friday weekend. She reluctantly agreed, what worst that could happen? She thought that if she did not drink or smoke at the party and was home before her grandmother came back from work; she would be fine. She planned to get back home by nine. The party started at six in the afternoon. Little did she know, her friends got too drunk to drive her home. She did not have any money to take a taxi. Unbeknownst to her, the policemen were called at the party house that was full of teenagers and alcohol. Some teenagers managed to flee the house. She and her friends, along with the other kids that were at the party were being taken to the police station for underage drinking. Sophia was panicking. There was no way that she was going to be able to get out of the situation without her grandmother knowing. Betty was just leaving her night job when she got a phone call from the police station. She answered it and the police told her that they had Sophia at the police station. They explained to her what had happened.

By the time Betty got to the police station, she was so mad that she wanted to berate Sophia right there at the police station. However, she decided to use a different approach by giving her the silent treatment. She just stared at her but did not say anything. Meanwhile, Sophia kept apologizing to her. Betty did not say anything to her except to tell her to get into the car so she could take her home. She gave her silent treatment all the way until they got home. After they got home Betty decided to tell Sophia about her mom's behavior when Sophia's mom was also a teenager. She told Sophia that she was afraid that Sophia would end up like her mother. She also told her about her grandfather's alcohol problems. Betty did not want to tell Sophia about these secrets, but it was the only way to make Sophia understand her actions and the consequences that they could have in her future if she did not behave properly.

Betty still chose to not tell Sophia everything about how Sophia's mother was a teen, but it was enough to scare Sophia. From that day forward, Sophia tried her best to never get into trouble again. She was determined to make her grandmother proud of her. Since she had promised her grandmother that she would never get herself into trouble again, Betty wanted to trust Sophia again. She decided not to let Sophia stay at Ruby's place anymore. From then on, Sophia would just come home after school and never leave the house unauthorized again. Because she was so determined to keep her promise, she did not have time to date in high school. Because of her high academic performance, she was able to get a full college scholarship. She was just as dedicated in college as she was in high school.