Erasing women.Support Causes
Erasing records.
Erasing shame.
I walked over to the shelf.
Beside Harold’s photograph sat a new frame.
Inside was a photograph of four women.
Margaret.
Rose.
Me.
Willa.
It had been taken at Willa’s graduation.
I picked it up.
Margaret smiled.
“I like that one better.”
“So do I.”
We sat together drinking coffee.
After a while, Margaret said, “There’s one final thing I’ve never told you.”
I laughed.
“If
you tell me there’s another secret relative, I’m leaving.”
She smiled.
“No.”
Then her expression softened.
“It’s about the first day you came to clean my house.”
I waited.
“You remember?”
“Of course.”
I remembered being nervous.
Thirty-one years old.
Exhausted.
Trying to build a schedule of clients after Daniel left.Monitor Vitals
Margaret had shown me the supplies, the rooms, the alarm system.
Nothing extraordinary.
“You had Willa with you,” Margaret said.
“For ten minutes.
My sister was late picking her up.”
“She sat at my kitchen table.”
I nodded.
“She drew me a picture.”
I frowned.
I didn’t remember that.
Margaret stood and went to a drawer.
From it, she removed a folded sheet of paper.Paper
The page had yellowed.
A child’s drawing.
Three stick figures standing beside a house.
One tall.
One small.
One older woman with gray scribbled hair.
Across the top, in nine-year-old Willa’s uneven handwriting, were
the words:
MOM SAYS NICE HOUSES AREN’T ABOUT MONEY.Tour Properties
THEY’RE ABOUT WHO LETS YOU FEEL SAFE INSIDE THEM.
I stared at it.
“I kept this for eight years,” Margaret said.
My eyes filled.
“Why?”
“Because Willa drew three people.”
