At noon, I was hungry. I had packed a peanut butter sandwich and an apple. I looked around
that big, beautiful kitchen with its checkered floor and its round table by the window.
Then I went out and ate my sandwich in my car.
It didn’t feel right to eat in her kitchen. It was her kitchen. I was the cleaner. I didn’t want her to
come home and find crumbs, or think I was making myself too comfortable. So I sat in the front seat of my old Honda with the engine off and ate my sandwich and looked at the oak tree.
I did that every Thursday for eight years.
Mrs. Whitaker came home at 1:15 that first day. She walked through the house slowly. I followed her. She didn’t say anything. She ran one finger along the top of the piano. She looked in the upstairs bathroom. She opened the oven.
