and me. But she never said it much. She showed it. In very, very small ways.” She looked at me. “I just want you to know. She talks about you. On the phone. Every week.”
I stopped wiping.
“She does?”
“Every Sunday when I call. ‘Carly found my pearl earring.’ ‘Carly fixed the sticky drawer.’ ‘Carly’s daughter counted the windows.’” Susan smiled. “I know more about you than I know about some
of my own cousins.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You saved her life,” Susan said. “The doctor said so. And I know she’ll never say it to you. So I’m
saying it. Thank you.”
She hugged me. Right there in the kitchen, with the dishrag still in my hand.
After Susan left, things went back to normal. Mostly.
Mrs. Whitaker still left notes. She still left a check. She still called me Carly and I still called her Mrs. Whitaker. I still ate my lunch in my car.
But she stopped going out on Thursdays. She was always home now. She’d sit in the living room
with her book and her cane, and when I came through to dust, she’d ask me something.
