Mrs. Whitaker listened. She nodded. She didn’t say oh, you poor thing. She didn’t offer me money. I think she knew I wouldn’t have taken it.
She just said, “I’m glad she’s all right.”
And then she said, “Carly, you’ve been working here three years. You can call me Margaret.”
“I don’t think I can,” I said. And I meant it. I don’t know why. It just felt wrong. Like calling your old
kindergarten teacher by her first name.
She almost smiled. “All right,” she said. “Mrs. Whitaker it is.”
The next Thursday, there was a check on the counter for one hundred and twenty-five dollars
instead of one hundred.
The note said: Carly — Cost of living. — M.W.
That was all. Just those three words. She never mentioned it again. And every Thursday after that,
the check was for a hundred and twenty-five.
It was in the fourth year that I found her on the bathroom floor.
It was a Thursday in February. Gray and cold, with old snow crusted along the sidewalks. I let myself in at nine like always. I called out, “Good morning, Mrs. Whitaker!” like always.
She didn’t answer.
That wasn’t unusual. She was often out. But her car was in the driveway. And her purse was on the hall table. And her reading glasses were on the kitchen counter, next to a cup of tea that had gone cold, with the tea bag still in it.
Mrs. Whitaker never left a tea bag in a cup. Never.
I stood in the kitchen and felt something cold go down the back of my neck.
“Mrs. Whitaker?”
Nothing.
I went through the downstairs. Living room. Dining room. The little study with the rolltop desk. Empty.
I went up the stairs. I called her name again. My voice sounded thin and strange in that big quiet house.
Her bedroom door was open. Her bed was made. And the door to her bathroom, the one with
the claw-foot tub, was half closed.
I pushed it open.
She was lying on the tile floor between the tub and the sink. She was wearing her flannel nightgown.
One arm was under her at a bad angle. Her face was gray. Her eyes were closed.
I don’t remember deciding to do anything. I just remember my knees hitting the tile.
