Ms. Whitaker never canceled. Not once. Not in eight years. Even when she went to visit Susan in Oregon for two weeks over Christmas, she left a note and a check on the counter.
Carly — I’ll be gone. Please come as usual. Plants need water and the house needs someone in it. —MW
I came as usual. I watered the plants. I dusted off the
piano. I didn’t know what she meant by the house needs someone in it. I thought maybe she was worried about the burglars.
The divorce was final during my second year working for her. Darren moved to Columbus with his girlfriend and started seeing Willa every other weekend, then once a month, and mostly on birthdays. Willa stopped asking when he was coming. It was harder to watch than anything he did to me.
During the third year, Willa had her first real asthma attack. We spent one night in the emergency room. The bill arrived three weeks later and it was more money than I had made in two months. I sat at my kitchen table with this note in front of me, put my head on the table and didn’t lift it for a long time.
That Thursday I must have looked horrible. Mrs. Whitaker was home. She
came into the kitchen while I was cleaning the tile floor.
“Is Willa okay?” she asked.
I stopped cleaning. I hadn’t told him anything. “How did you know something happened?”
“You cleaned that same square three times”, she said.
I looked down. She was right.
So I told him. Not all. It’s just that Willa had asthma, and we went to the emergency room, and she was fine now, and they gave her an inhaler.
Mrs. Whitaker listened. She nodded. She didn’t say Oh, poor creature. She didn’t offer me any money. I think she knew I wouldn’t have taken it.
She just said, “I’m glad she’s okay.”
And then she said: “Carly, you’ve been working here for three years. You can call me Margaret.”
