And there were sandwiches. Chicken salad on soft bread, cut into little triangles with the crusts cut off. A bowl of grapes. A pitcher of iced tea with lemon slices floating in it.
I stood in the doorway of that kitchen and just looked at it.
“Sit down,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “I know you usually eat lunch in your car.”
I stopped.
“You knew that?”
“Every Thursday for eight years,” she said. “Twelve o’clock. Peanut butter, mostly. Sometimes turkey. You sit in the front seat and look at the oak tree.” She pulled out a chair for me. “I watched you from the upstairs window. Every week, I thought, This time I’ll go down and ask her to come
in. And every week, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
She sat down across from me. She unfolded her napkin and laid it carefully in her lap.
“Because I’m a stubborn old woman who doesn’t know how to say things,” she said. “Ask Susan. She’ll tell you.”
