“Come in, Carly”, she said.
She showed me the house. The long entrance hall with parquet flooring. The living room with the fireplace and the grand piano that no one played on. The formal dining room with a table long enough for twelve people. The kitchen, huge and old-fashioned, with white cabinets and black
and white checkered floors. The four bedrooms upstairs. The three bathrooms, one with a free-standing bathtub.
“My husband and I bought this house in 1971”, she said as we walked. “We raised our daughter here. Suzanne. She now lives in Oregon. My husband died two years ago.” She said it simply, as someone would say 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 really meant it.
“It’s a lot of dust”, she said. “That’s it.”
We ended up going back into the kitchen. She sat down at the small round table by the window. She didn’t ask me to sit down. So I got up.
“I’ll pay you a hundred dollars a week”, she said. “Every Thursday, from nine to two o’clock. 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.”
One hundred dollars a week. Four hundred dollars a month. I did the math in my head while standing there. It wasn’t enough to live on. But that was enough to pay the electricity bill and do the shopping. It was a start.
“That sounds wonderful”, I said.
“You will have a key. I often go out on Thursdays. I play bridge. I volunteer at the hospital gift shop.” She reached into a drawer and pulled out a single brass key on a single ring. She handed it to me. “Don’t lose it.”
I took it. It was heavy in my hand. Heavier than a key should feel.
“You don’t know me”, I said before, I could stop. “Are you just giving me a key?”
