Then I found a handwritten notice on the bulletin board of a small grocery in Worthington.
“Live-in woman wanted to cook and keep house. Room, board, and $600 a week.”
The owner was Dorothy Lang, a seventy-four-year-old widow who lived alone.
She greeted me in a navy dress, her hair completely white, with eyes that seemed to examine even what I preferred to keep quiet.
“Can you cook real home-cooked food?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can you keep books?”
“Better than I cook.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Then you start tomorrow.”
Before accepting, I confessed that I had a criminal record.
Dorothy said nothing for a few seconds.
“I asked if you knew how to work, not whether your life has been perfect.”
That night I sl*pt in a small room with a window overlooking the backyard.
It was the first time in years I could close a door without someone else deciding when it would open again.
