“Come in, Carly,” she said.
She showed me the house. The long front hall with the wooden floors. The living room with the fireplace and the big piano nobody played. The formal dining room with a table long enough for
twelve people. The kitchen, which was huge and old-fashioned, with white cabinets and a black-and-white checkered floor. The four bedrooms upstairs. The three bathrooms, one with a claw-foot tub.
“My husband and I bought this house in 1971,” she said as we walked. “We raised our daughter here. Susan. She lives in Oregon now. My husband passed away two years ago.” She said it simply,
the way you’d tell someone the time. “The house is too big for one person. But I’m too stubborn to leave it.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. And I meant it.
“It’s a lot of dust,” she said. “That’s what it is.”
We ended up back in the kitchen. She sat down at the small round table by the window. She didn’t ask me to sit. So I stood.
“I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a week,” she said. “Every Thursday, nine to two. I’ll leave a check on the counter. If you need supplies, tell me and I’ll buy them, or buy them yourself and leave me the receipt.”
A hundred dollars a week. Four hundred dollars a month. I did the math in my head standing there. It wasn’t enough to live on. But it was enough to pay the electric bill and buy groceries. It was a start.
“That sounds wonderful,” I said.
“You’ll have a key. I’m often out on Thursdays. I play bridge. I volunteer at the hospital gift shop.” She reached into a drawer and took out a single brass key on a plain ring. She held it out to me.
“Don’t lose it.”
I took it. It felt heavy in my hand. Heavier than a key should feel.
“You don’t know me,” I said before I could stop myself. “You’re just giving me a key?”
