I still have the brass key. I keep it on my key ring, even though it doesn’t open anything anymore.
Sometimes, when I’m nervous, I rub my thumb over it.
And I have a new client on Thursdays.
His name is Mr. Harold Dean. He’s eighty-three. His wife died last winter. He lives alone in a little
house on Maple Street with a vegetable garden he doesn’t tend anymore and a dog named Biscuit who’s almost as old as he is.
The first Thursday I cleaned for him, I found an old tea bag sitting in a cup on the counter, cold.
And I felt that cold feeling go down the back of my neck, and I went through every room until I found him asleep in his recliner with the TV on.
He was fine. Just asleep. But I understood something in that moment about Mrs. Whitaker. About
