I stayed at the kitchen table long after I got home.
The check lay in front of me.
I could have put it away, but I didn't.
Every time I looked at it, I remembered Carlton standing behind that screen door.
I remembered the way he had passed it through the opening instead of letting me enter the house.
I remembered how quickly he had finished with me.
Three hundred dollars.
I kept returning to the amount as though there might be something else hidden in it if I studied it long enough.
There wasn't.
The check was payment, or perhaps a final gesture, for a job that had lasted longer than some marriages.
It couldn't replace the money I would no longer earn.
It couldn't give me back the Fridays at the kitchen table.
And it couldn't change what I had learned about Carlton.
At seventy-two, I had very little income.
Social Security arrived on the third of every month.
I knew exactly when to expect it because I had spent years arranging my expenses around that payment.
There were necessities to cover.
There were things I couldn't put off simply because the month had become difficult.
The money from Mrs. Lockridge's household had helped me manage those expenses.
It wasn't a fortune.
I had never pretended it was.
But it was steady work, and steady work meant I could make plans without worrying every day about how I would get through the next week.
Now that money was gone.
I had the three hundred dollars Carlton had given me.
I had my Social Security.
And I had no idea how I was supposed to make the rest work.
I looked around my kitchen.
Everything was where I had left it.
The table.
The chairs.
The ordinary things that made a house a place to live.
Nothing had changed except my circumstances.
That was the trouble with losing work when you were older.
The world didn't stop to give you time to understand what had happened.
The bills still came.
Food still cost money.
The calendar continued turning, whether you were ready for the next month or not.
I thought about finding another house to clean.
Then I thought about my age.
My hands were not as strong as they had once been.
My back complained more often.
I could still do the work, but I had never imagined beginning all over again at seventy-two.
I had spent twenty-six years building a routine around one household.
Now I was supposed to find a new one.
That evening, I called my daughter, Alfreda.
I wanted to tell her what Carlton had done.
I wanted somebody to hear the whole thing, from the check to the closed door.
Most of all, I wanted to hear another person's voice.
When Alfreda answered, I tried to speak normally.
I told her that Mrs. Lockridge's son had ended my employment.
I told her he had handed me three hundred dollars and sent me away.
I did not tell the story as dramatically as it felt.
I left out some of the things I had noticed in the kitchen.
I didn't want to sound bitter.
Alfreda listened.
When I finished, she took a moment before responding.
"Mama, you've been doing that kind of work for a long time. You shouldn't have to keep cleaning houses at your age."
I understood what she meant.
She wasn't trying to hurt me.
She worried about my health and the years I had already spent working.
But her words left me with the same question I had been asking myself since I drove away from the farmhouse.
"What else am I supposed to do?"
I wasn't angry with her.
I needed her to understand that I couldn't simply decide to stop working.
People sometimes spoke about retirement as though it were a door anybody could open whenever they felt ready.
For me, there had never been much choice.
I worked because I needed the money.
I continued because the bills didn't care how tired I felt.
Now I had lost that income, and I couldn't see what was supposed to replace it.
Alfreda went quiet.
I waited for her to say something reassuring.
Perhaps she would suggest a way forward.
Perhaps she would tell me I could come and stay with her until I found something else.
I hated myself a little for hoping that.
My daughter had her own life.
She had her own responsibilities.
I knew that.
Still, when you have spent years telling yourself you can manage alone, there comes a moment when you want somebody else to say you don't have to.
Alfreda finally spoke.
"Mama, you can't move in with us right now. We don't have room for that kind of change."
She said it gently.
That almost made it worse.
If she had sounded cruel, I could have been angry.
Instead, I heard the discomfort in her voice.
She was telling me something she didn't want to tell me, and I knew she wanted the conversation to be over.
I didn't argue.
I didn't ask her to explain.
I didn't remind her that I was seventy-two and had just lost the work that kept me going.
I told her I understood.
Then I said goodbye.
When the call ended, I put the telephone down carefully.
I sat at the table again.
The check was still there.
I looked at it, then at the telephone, and then at the empty chair across from me.
I had spent the day hoping somebody might tell me what to do next.
Carlton had made it clear he wanted nothing more to do with my work.
Alfreda had made it clear she couldn't offer me a place to stay.
Neither of them had been required to make my life easy.
I knew that.
But knowing it didn't make the loneliness any easier to bear.
I stayed at the table until the light outside began to fade.
I didn't turn on the television.
I didn't make myself a proper meal.
I simply sat there, thinking about the next month and the one after it.
The three hundred dollars would help for a little while.
After that, I would have to find a way to manage.
I had no plan.
For the first time in years, I couldn't tell myself that everything would be all right if I just kept working hard.
There was no work waiting for me the following Monday.
No Thursday floor washing.
No Friday coffee.
The days that had once belonged to Mrs. Lockridge were suddenly empty.
I went to bed that night without putting the check away.
In the morning, I saw it again when I entered the kitchen.
I moved it to one side so I could prepare my breakfast.
Then I moved it back.
It was a small, foolish thing to do.
But I couldn't seem to put it out of sight.
The check had become a reminder of how quickly a person could go from being useful to being unwanted.
For twenty-six years, I had believed I knew where I stood with the Lockridge family.
I knew my place in the house.
I knew my responsibilities.
I knew the hours I was expected to work.
I had mistaken that familiarity for security.
Now I was learning the difference.
A few days passed.
I stayed home and tried not to think too far ahead.
There was no reason to make myself more frightened than I already was.
I told myself I would figure something out.
People had faced worse situations than mine.
People older than me had found ways to continue.
I tried to believe I would do the same.
Then, seven days after Carlton handed me that check, the telephone rang.
I was in the house when I heard it.
For a moment, I considered letting it ring.
I wasn't expecting anyone, and I had grown tired of answering questions about things I couldn't fix.
But the telephone continued ringing.
So I picked it up.
A woman's voice came through the line.
She asked whether she was speaking to Elnora Ruthanne Whitsett.
I tightened my grip on the receiver.
Almost nobody used my full name.
My doctor did when checking records.
Otherwise, people called me Elnora.
The middle name made me pause.
Ruthanne.
I thought of the paper napkin Mrs. Lockridge had written on during our coffee that Friday.
I hadn't thought about it in days.
Now the memory returned so suddenly that I had to remind myself to answer the woman on the telephone.
"Yes, this is Elnora Whitsett."
The woman introduced herself as Rosella.
She said she was calling from the county register of deeds.
I didn't know what she wanted from me.
Then she asked if I could come to the courthouse and bring identification.
My stomach tightened.
I looked at the check on the table.
I looked at the telephone in my hand.
And for the first time since losing my job, I had a new problem to worry about.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: My Daughter Warned Me to Leave the Lockridge Family Alone, but the Woman at the Courthouse Knew Why My Full Name Mattered
For Twenty-Six Years, I Thought I Knew My Place in That Family, Until Mrs. Lockridge Asked Me a Question I Couldn’t Understand
Part 3 of 24
