PART 13 – I Read Rosella’s Notes Beside the Three-Hundred-Dollar Check, Trying to Understand Why Henrietta Had Made Arrangements Without Telling Me

I stayed at the kitchen table long after I returned from the courthouse.

The house was quiet.

I could hear the refrigerator humming and the occasional car passing on the road outside.

On the table lay the paper Rosella had given me.

Beside it was Carlton's check.

I looked from one to the other.

For seven days, that check had been the only thing I could point to from my final encounter with the Lockridge family.

Three hundred dollars.

That was what Carlton had handed me after twenty-six years of work.

Now I had another piece of paper, one that reminded me Henrietta had made plans before she died.

I didn't know what those plans would mean for me.

But I knew I couldn't treat them as though they didn't exist.

I took my reading glasses from the drawer and put them on.

Then I read Rosella's notes again.

The details were difficult for me to make sense of without the book in front of me.

I had spent my working life paying attention to floors, cupboards, sinks, and the small things people left behind.

Legal records were different.

The words didn't always mean what they seemed to mean.

I didn't want to misunderstand something important and spend the next several days worrying about the wrong thing.

So I folded the paper carefully and put it inside the drawer where I kept my important documents.

Then I took out the check again.

I had not deposited it.

Part of me had been reluctant to do so.

I knew that sounded foolish.

Three hundred dollars was three hundred dollars, and I needed every dollar I could get.

But cashing it had felt like agreeing that Carlton's dismissal was the final word.

I knew a check wasn't a statement about my worth.

Still, feelings didn't always listen to reason.

I put the check back in its envelope.

That evening, Alfreda called.

She asked how I was doing.

I told her I had been to the courthouse and spoken with Rosella.

There was a pause on the line.

"What did she want, Mama?"

I explained that Henrietta had made arrangements concerning the property and that my name appeared in an official record.

I did not pretend to understand every detail.

I told Alfreda that Rosella had been careful to explain what she could and that I intended to learn more.

My daughter sighed.

"Are you sure you want to get mixed up in this?"

I looked at the drawer where I had placed the paper.

"I didn't go looking for anything, Alfreda. They called me."

"I know, Mama. I'm just worried."

I understood her concern.

She had her own household to manage.

She knew how little money I had and how difficult it would be for me to deal with people who had more resources than I did.

She wasn't trying to hurt me.

She was afraid I would get hurt.

But I was beginning to see that avoiding every difficult situation could leave me with nothing but unanswered questions.

"I just want to know what Henrietta intended," I told her.

"Then be careful."

"I will."

We said good night.

I sat quietly for a while after the call ended.

I wished Alfreda had been able to tell me that she would help me through whatever came next.

But she had never promised that.

She had been honest about what she could manage.

I had to be honest about my own needs, too.

The following morning, I opened the drawer again.

I took out the notes and read them before breakfast.

Then I put them away and made myself some coffee.

I was still trying to live as normally as I could.

There were dishes to wash.

There was laundry to fold.

There were bills waiting to be paid.

The courthouse had not taken those ordinary responsibilities away.

If anything, the uncertainty made them harder to ignore.

I sat down with my bills and checked the dates.

My Social Security payment would arrive on the third.

Until then, I needed to make what I had last.

I counted the money in my purse and wrote down the expenses I couldn't avoid.

Food.

Electricity.

Gas for the Buick.

There wasn't much room for anything else.

I thought about finding another house to clean.

At my age, I knew that would not be easy.

Some people preferred younger workers.

Others wanted somebody who could lift heavy furniture or scrub a floor without stopping to rest.

I could still work, but I couldn't pretend my body was the same as it had been twenty years earlier.

For twenty-six years, Henrietta's house had provided a steady routine.

I knew what needed doing and when it needed to be done.

I had never had to wonder whether I would have work the following week.

Now I did.

I didn't tell myself that the courthouse record would solve all my problems.

I had no proof of that.

But I also stopped telling myself that nothing could change.

That was a small difference.

It was enough for that morning.

Later, I found myself thinking about the last Friday I had spent with Henrietta.

She had asked me to spell my middle name.

I had answered without hesitation.

Then she had written it down.

I remembered the way she had looked at the napkin.

She had seemed satisfied once she finished.

I had gone back to cleaning the kitchen, never imagining that the moment would stay with me.

Now I wondered whether she had been trying to make sure there would be no confusion later.

If she had wanted to be certain that I was the person named in a record, perhaps every letter mattered.

I couldn't know for certain.

But I no longer thought the question had been an idle one.

That afternoon, I took a walk around my yard.

The air was warm, and the pecan trees near the road moved gently in the breeze.

I thought of the trees behind the little white house where I had grown up.

My mother had spent years working for the Lockridge family.

Then I had spent years working for Henrietta.

We had both done what we needed to do.

Neither of us had expected anything beyond the wages we earned.

Yet here I was, trying to understand a decision made by the woman who had employed me.

I went back inside and washed my coffee cup.

Then I placed it upside down beside the sink.

It was a small, ordinary act.

For the first time in days, I didn't feel as though my entire life had stopped because of what happened at the farmhouse.

I still had questions.

I still needed answers.

But I could wait without giving up.

Click here to continue reading: PART 14: My Daughter Feared the Lockridge Brothers Would Make Trouble, but I Was No Longer Willing to Let Fear Answer Every Question for Me