The two employees at Oriana House are Cindy and Carol. Carol had a history of drug abuse, but had been clean for 10 years. She had put her life back together and had regained her two boys. The whole experience had taught her lessons of life that she now just wanted to give back. Carol had a sweet, amiable personality which allowed her to relate well with the women under their care and was always trying to find a way to make things better.

Cindy on the other hand had a driver personality and while she meant well sometimes Tina just wondered who was in charge, her or Cindy. Cindy was always giving orders or getting other people to ask requests of Tina which had originated from Cindy. It was almost as if Cindy was challenging Tina’s right to be there from Tina’s first step in the door. Managing Cindy was going to be a tricky challenge.

The other house was Crittin House. This house was located in an area closer to Alice’s apartment in West Hollywood. As this house was smaller and had less room the classes were small enough that Jackie was the only aide. Jackie was quiet and easy going. It took a lot to rattle Jackie to the point of becoming unnerved. This house was scheduled for an expansion soon which would bring in up to twenty more families. When this happened, Tina was hoping to hire another aide to assist Jackie.

Tina would start her day at Oriana House spend the morning with Cindy and Carol and then move on to Crittin House in the afternoon. This allowed Tina to be available to help with overflow issues that Jackie might run into at the end of the day. This all added up to making Tina very busy establishing the schooling programs.

She liked the thought that maybe she could make their lives a little better. In some cases the battered women themselves who were trying to get their GEDs or in other instances, it was the children of these women. The satisfaction and enjoyment for helping these kids adds a missing sense of achievement in Tina’s life. This sense of achievement has started to put that sparkle and joy back into Tina’s eyes.

As Tina settled into this new life the days started to pass quickly. It was just when Tina was alone at night that she thought about Bette, her previous life and even wondered where Bette is now. “Where is she? God, why do I even care?” So Tina fell into a daily routine of coffee with the gang, mornings at the Oriana House, afternoons at the Crittin House and then back to Alice’s for dinner and any left over paperwork.