After the ceremony, Willa came running across the football field in her cap and gown. She hugged me. Then she turned and hugged Mrs. Whitaker, carefully, because of the cane.
“Thank you,” Willa said into her shoulder.
“Don’t thank me,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “Thank Rose. And Alice. And your mother.” She pulled back and looked Willa in the eye. “And don’t you dare forget what you owe.”
“I won’t,” Willa said. “I promise. Someday.”
“Not someday,” Mrs. Whitaker said. “Someday is a lie we tell ourselves. When the time comes, you’ll know. Don’t wait fifty years like I did.”
That fall, Willa started college. Two hours away. In a dorm room with a window that looked out over a courtyard with an old stone fountain.
She calls me every Thursday night. I don’t think she does it on purpose. It just happens that way.
