Nothing fancy.
Just enough to maybe buy a modest place outside town before rent swallowed us completely.
The bank had turned me down.
My income was too inconsistent.
Too much of it came from cash cleaning jobs.
My credit had been damaged during the separation.
That afternoon, I had sat on Mrs.
Whitaker’s upstairs landing and cried for perhaps thirty seconds before wiping my face and returning to work.
I had thought no one saw.
Mrs.
Whitaker had.
“You said something after the call,” she said.
I could
barely breathe.
“You told yourself, ‘Just get Willa through school.
After that, it doesn’t matter where I end up.’”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered saying it.
I had not realized anyone could hear.
“I went into my bedroom,” Mrs.
Whitaker said, “and I cried.”
I opened my eyes.
She looked almost angry now.
“Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“Because you had spent years walking through my house worrying whether I might fall, whether I had taken my medicine, whether I had groceries after Harold died.”
