I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
“When I was seventeen, I got into college. A good one. The first person in my whole family to even apply. And we didn’t have the money. Not even close. I was going to go to work at the telephone company instead. My mother cried for a week.”
She walked back to the table. She sat down slowly.
“The week before I was supposed to start at the telephone company, a letter came in the mail.
From a bank. It said a scholarship had been established in my name. It would pay for four years of tuition. It was from an anonymous donor.”
“Mrs. Ashford,” I said.
“Mrs. Ashford. She had been putting money aside for me since I was nine years old. Every Thursday. The same amount she paid my mother.” Mrs. Whitaker’s eyes were bright with tears again. “My mother never knew until after I graduated. When she found out, she went to Mrs.
