barely breathe.
“You told yourself, ‘Just get Willa through school.
After that, it doesn’t matter where I end up.’”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered saying it.
I had not realized anyone could hear.
“I went into my bedroom,” Mrs.
Whitaker said, “and I cried.”
I opened my eyes.
She looked almost angry now.
“Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“Because you had spent years walking through my house worrying whether I might fall, whether I had taken my medicine, whether I had groceries after Harold died.”
Her voice trembled.
“And meanwhile you had convinced yourself that your own future didn’t matter.”
“Mrs.
Whitaker…”
“My name is Margaret.”
I stopped.
Eight years.
I had never called her Margaret.
Not once.
She stood and came around the table.
Then she took my hands.
“I bought your house because you need one place in this world where no landlord can
