She didn’t ask me how we were going to pay for it. And I didn’t say.
Three weeks later, she told me she was moving.
It was a Thursday in October. I had just finished the upstairs. I came down the stairs with my bucket, and Mrs. Whitaker was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, and she said, “Carly, would you sit down for a moment?”
In eight years, she had never asked me to sit down.
I sat. On the edge of the chair. With my bucket still in my hand.
“I’m moving to Oregon,” she said. “To be near Susan. There’s a very nice apartment in a building
for older people, about ten minutes from her house. It has an elevator. And a dining room. And a library.”
“Oh,” I said. It came out like I’d been punched. “Oh. That’s— that’s wonderful. That’s really good.
For you.”
“I’m eighty,” she said. “I’m tired of having a whole upstairs I don’t use.”
We both laughed. It was a strange, wobbly laugh.
“When?” I asked.
“The house is listed. There’s already an offer. A young family, with three little boys. I’ll be gone by the end of November.”
