The next few days moved slowly.<\/p>\n
I kept going about my usual business, but my mind returned to the courthouse whenever I had a quiet moment.<\/p>\n
I washed clothes.<\/p>\n
I cleaned the kitchen.<\/p>\n
I paid my electric bill and checked the balance in my bank account.<\/p>\n
I called my sister to ask how she was feeling after the cold she had caught.<\/p>\n
Every ordinary task reminded me that life did not stop simply because one question had become too large to ignore.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday morning, I opened my notebook again.<\/p>\n
The date beside the property entry stood out.<\/p>\n
I checked it against the year I had started working for Rosella.<\/p>\n
I had been with her for several years by then.<\/p>\n
That surprised me.<\/p>\n
I had imagined the entry might have been made near the end of her life, perhaps after she became ill or started thinking about her estate.<\/p>\n
Instead, it had existed while I was still learning the small habits of her house.<\/p>\n
I thought about the woman I had been then.<\/p>\n
I was younger, but not young enough to believe that hard work always led to security.<\/p>\n
I had rented a small place on the edge of town.<\/p>\n
The kitchen was narrow, the windows rattled when the wind came from the north, and the back steps needed repair.<\/p>\n
I had been proud to pay my own bills.<\/p>\n
I had also been afraid of what would happen if I missed too many days of work.<\/p>\n
Rosella knew that.<\/p>\n
She had never asked me to tell her how much money I had in the bank, but she understood what it meant to live without much room for a mistake.<\/p>\n
She paid me on time.<\/p>\n
When she asked me to stay late, she paid me for the extra hours.<\/p>\n
If she wanted me to buy something for the house, she gave me the money before I left the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Those things may sound small to someone who has never had to count every dollar.<\/p>\n
They were not small to me.<\/p>\n
I had learned to trust the practical things Rosella did more than the kind things she sometimes said.<\/p>\n
The practical things could be counted.<\/p>\n
Her words were harder to understand.<\/p>\n
One afternoon, several years into my work for her, she had found me wiping dust from the dining room shelves.<\/p>\n
"You still renting that little place?" she asked.<\/p>\n
"Yes, ma'am."<\/p>\n
"Do you like it?"<\/p>\n
"It's fine."<\/p>\n
"Fine isn't the same as liking it."<\/p>\n
I had laughed.<\/p>\n
"It's close to work, and the rent is manageable."<\/p>\n
She had watched me put the cloth into my bucket.<\/p>\n
"Have you ever thought about owning something?"<\/p>\n
I assumed she meant a house.<\/p>\n
"Not seriously," I said. "I don't have enough saved."<\/p>\n
"That wasn't what I asked."<\/p>\n
I remembered feeling uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I did not like discussing money with an employer, even one who had always treated me fairly.<\/p>\n
"I suppose I'd like to own a small place someday," I told her. "Somewhere I could stay without worrying about a landlord selling it."<\/p>\n
She had nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
"That makes sense."<\/p>\n
Then she had returned to her newspaper.<\/p>\n
I had forgotten the conversation until I saw my name in the deed book.<\/p>\n
Now the memory seemed different.<\/p>\n
I could not tell whether Rosella had been thinking about the property or simply asking about my life.<\/p>\n
I wrote the conversation in my notebook as accurately as I could remember it.<\/p>\n
I marked the date as approximate.<\/p>\n
I did not want to turn a memory into a fact just because I needed it to mean something.<\/p>\n
Later that morning, I called the courthouse to ask whether my document request had been entered.<\/p>\n
The clerk checked the reference number.<\/p>\n
"Yes, ma'am. It's in the system."<\/p>\n
"Do you know when it might be ready?"<\/p>\n
"The request is still being processed. We don't have the original in this office, so it may take a few more days."<\/p>\n
I thanked her and hung up.<\/p>\n
I had wanted a quicker answer.<\/p>\n
But there was no use being impatient with someone who had not caused the delay.<\/p>\n
That afternoon, I drove past Rosella's property.<\/p>\n
I told myself I was only going into town to pick up a prescription for my neighbor, and the road past the farmhouse was the easiest route.<\/p>\n
That was partly true.<\/p>\n
The other part was that I wanted to see the land.<\/p>\n
I slowed as I approached the long gravel drive.<\/p>\n
The farmhouse stood where it always had, with its pale siding and broad front porch.<\/p>\n
The pecan grove behind the tenant house was beginning to lose its leaves.<\/p>\n
Beyond it, the fields ran toward the creek.<\/p>\n
I could see the line of trees along the water, dark against the gray sky.<\/p>\n
Nothing about the place looked different.<\/p>\n
That was what unsettled me most.<\/p>\n
I had cleaned that farmhouse for twenty-six years.<\/p>\n
I had carried laundry through its hallways and scrubbed the kitchen floor until the boards shone.<\/p>\n
I had opened the windows on warm days and shut them before storms.<\/p>\n
I had watched Rosella stand on the porch with a cup of coffee, looking across the fields as if she were checking on something only she could see.<\/p>\n
Yet I had never thought of the land as connected to me in any way.<\/p>\n
I parked briefly on the shoulder across from the entrance.<\/p>\n
I did not turn into the driveway.<\/p>\n
I had no reason to enter the property without permission, and I did not want anyone to mistake my presence for an attempt to claim it.<\/p>\n
A truck was parked near the house.<\/p>\n
I could not tell whether it belonged to one of Rosella's sons or to someone working there.<\/p>\n
I started the car and drove on.<\/p>\n
That evening, Rosella's friend called me.<\/p>\n
She had been thinking about our conversation at the courthouse.<\/p>\n
"There's something I remembered," she said.<\/p>\n
I sat down at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
"What is it?"<\/p>\n
"Rosella once asked me whether I thought you were a careful person."<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
"What did you tell her?"<\/p>\n
"I said you were one of the most careful people I knew."<\/p>\n
I felt a small, uncomfortable warmth in my chest.<\/p>\n
"Why would she ask you that?"<\/p>\n
"I don't know. I asked her the same thing, and she changed the subject."<\/p>\n
"Did she say anything else?"<\/p>\n
"She said that some people were trusted with things because they understood the value of keeping them safe."<\/p>\n
I wrote the words down.<\/p>\n
"Did she say my name?"<\/p>\n
"No. I connected it to you because of the way she asked the question, but I can't promise she was talking about you."<\/p>\n
I appreciated that she made the distinction.<\/p>\n
We were both trying to remember a woman who could be direct about a dirty floor and silent about her deepest concerns.<\/p>\n
"Did she ever mention a deed?" I asked.<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
"Or a will?"<\/p>\n
"Not to me."<\/p>\n
I rubbed my forehead.<\/p>\n
Every memory seemed to lead toward another question.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to understand why Rosella's friend had not wanted to guess at the courthouse.<\/p>\n
There was too much we did not know.<\/p>\n
"Thank you for telling me," I said.<\/p>\n
"Don't let this make you forget who you are, Elnora."<\/p>\n
I looked at the notebook.<\/p>\n
"What do you mean?"<\/p>\n
"You've spent your life working honestly. Whatever that entry means, you don't need to apologize for asking what it says."<\/p>\n
After we hung up, I sat without moving for a while.<\/p>\n
I had been raised to keep my head down and avoid appearing greedy.<\/p>\n
If someone offered me something, I wanted to be sure I had earned it.<\/p>\n
If someone accused me of wanting too much, my first instinct was to explain myself.<\/p>\n
That instinct had followed me into adulthood.<\/p>\n
It was one reason I had hesitated to ask questions about the property.<\/p>\n
I worried that even looking at the record would make me seem ungrateful or dishonest.<\/p>\n
But Rosella had been a grown woman who understood the meaning of a public deed.<\/p>\n
If she had put my name there for a reason, asking about it would not erase that reason.<\/p>\n
If the entry had another explanation, asking about it would help me understand that too.<\/p>\n
The truth did not become less true because I was afraid of what people might think.<\/p>\n
I wrote that sentence in my notebook.<\/p>\n
Then I closed it.<\/p>\n
The following morning, I returned to my normal routine.<\/p>\n
I cleaned my own kitchen, folded the towels, and took out the trash.<\/p>\n
I made a list of the bills that were due before the end of the month.<\/p>\n
I checked the mailbox twice, although I knew the courthouse would not send anything so quickly.<\/p>\n
Nothing came.<\/p>\n
I felt disappointed, then reminded myself that a few days was not a long time to wait for an old document.<\/p>\n
I had waited years without knowing there was a question to ask.<\/p>\n
I could wait a little longer for the answer.<\/p>\n
The next few days moved slowly. I kept going about my usual business, but my mind returned to the courthouse whenever I had a quiet moment. I washed clothes. I … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40483,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40463\/revisions\/40483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}