I was proud of her. I was so proud of her I thought my heart would burst. And I was terrified, because I knew exactly how much money I had, and it was nowhere near thirty-two thousand dollars a year. It was nowhere near thirty-two thousand dollars total.
We filled out the financial aid forms together at the kitchen table. Willa applied for every scholarship she could find. She wrote essays until two in the morning. I picked up two more cleaning jobs on Saturdays. I stopped buying coffee at the gas station. I told myself we’d figure
it out. Loans. Grants. Something.
I didn’t tell Mrs. Whitaker any of this. It wasn’t her business. I was her cleaner.
But she asked about Willa every Thursday. And one Thursday, in September of Willa’s senior year,
she asked me where Willa was applying to college.
I told her.
“Architecture,” Mrs. Whitaker said. She nodded slowly. “Of course. The windows.”
“The windows,” I agreed.
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.”
he end of November. Six weeks.
I drove home that day and sat in my driveway for twenty minutes before I went inside. I told myself it was about the money. Losing my most reliable client. A hundred and twenty-five dollars a
