I didn't make a decision that Saturday.
I drove home with Greg's folded paper in my handbag.
It seemed ridiculous that such a small piece of paper could make me feel so unsettled.
Eight hundred dollars.
The figure stayed with me.
So did Sarah's explanation about the children.
I understood that raising children was tiring.
I had raised one myself.
I knew what it meant to have your day interrupted before breakfast and to reach bedtime with half the things you meant to do still waiting.
But I was sixty-seven.
I had worked for decades.
I'd lost my husband.
And I was facing the end of the time I had been allowed to remain in the farmhouse.
I wasn't looking for a way to avoid responsibility.
I was trying to find a home.
There was a difference.
On my way back, I stopped at the feed store.
It was four blocks away, a place I knew well enough to recognize the creak of the door and the smell of grain and supplies as soon as I entered.
For about three weeks, I'd noticed a handwritten rental notice beside the cash register.
The writing wasn't fancy.
It simply said that a small house was available, with two rooms and a bathroom, and that anyone interested should ask Higgins.
I had read it more than once.
Each time, I'd told myself to inquire later.
That afternoon, I finally asked.
"Is that little house behind the elevator still available?"
Mr. Higgins looked toward the notice.
Then he nodded.
"It hasn't been rented."
He offered to show it to me.
I followed him out.
The house stood on a quiet street behind the grain elevator.
It had white siding and a porch swing.
There was only one step up to the front door.
That detail caught my attention immediately.
One step.
After years of walking through the farmhouse, I hadn't thought much about stairs.
But I was getting older, and I had no reason to choose a place that made ordinary things harder than necessary.
Harvest was underway.
A fine coating of wheat dust had settled on the porch and the outside surfaces.
The place wasn't polished or impressive.
It didn't look like the sort of house anyone would show off to visitors.
Mr. Higgins glanced around as though he wanted me to understand that before I got too attached.
"It isn't much," he said.
I looked at the door.
It was a real front door.
Not a basement entrance.
Not a room someone had made available beneath the place where they lived.
A door I could open and close without asking anyone's permission.
"I don't need much," I told him.
He explained the rent.
Five hundred and fifty dollars each month.
Electricity would be separate.
I went over the figures in my head.
Five hundred and fifty.
Not eight hundred.
The difference wasn't a small thing to me.
It was money I could keep for food, medicine, household supplies, and the ordinary surprises that came with living alone.
There would be no four-day childcare schedule attached to the rent.
No expectation that I would organize my week around somebody else's needs.
No reason to explain why I wanted a quiet afternoon or why I couldn't watch the children on a particular day.
I could help Sarah when I chose to help her.
I could spend time with my grandchildren because I wanted to be with them.
That mattered to me more than I could explain.
Mr. Higgins showed me the rooms.
I looked carefully.
Two rooms.
A bathroom.
A place to prepare food.
Nothing fancy.
I didn't need fancy.
Arthur and I had never been people who measured a home by the things other people noticed first.
We had made a life with what we could afford.
We had learned to appreciate a good chair, a reliable stove, and a roof that didn't leak.
I could do the same thing here.
The house would be mine to arrange.
I could decide where to put my things.
I could sit by the window without worrying about disturbing anyone upstairs.
I could have my own schedule.
And when I came home, I could enter through my own door.
I asked Mr. Higgins what I needed to do to secure the place.
He explained the deposit.
I didn't hesitate.
We went outside, and I used the hood of my Chevy as a surface to write the check.
The metal was cool beneath my hand.
I checked the amount twice.
Old habits.
Then I handed him the check.
He gave me a small metal ring holding two keys.
One was for the front entrance.
The other was for the back.
I turned them over in my palm.
They were ordinary keys.
Nothing special about them.
But they meant something to me.
For the first time in my life, I had chosen a home entirely for myself.
Arthur and I had made decisions together for years.
Before him, I'd lived under my parents' roof.
After we married, we moved according to the needs of his work.
The farmhouse had never belonged to us.
We had cared for it, filled it with memories, and treated it as home.
But it had always been tied to someone else's circumstances.
Now I was holding the keys to a place I had chosen because it suited me.
I didn't have to persuade anyone that the room was good enough.
I didn't have to pay extra for the privilege of being useful.
I could simply live there.
I slipped the keys into my handbag.
Then I looked at the front entrance one more time.
I wasn't foolish enough to believe the house would solve everything.
It wouldn't bring Arthur back.
It wouldn't make the coming winter warmer.
It wouldn't erase the fact that my daughter had offered me a place on terms that hurt more than I had expected.
And it certainly wouldn't guarantee that Sarah would understand my decision.
But it gave me a place to begin.
The days before November first were moving whether I was ready or not.
The Millers needed their farmhouse.
I needed somewhere else to live.
Mr. Higgins had given me an option I could afford.
So I took it.
I didn't call Sarah that afternoon.
I told myself I would explain once I had settled the arrangements.
That was partly practical.
It was also partly cowardice.
I was afraid of disappointing her.
I was afraid she would think I had rejected her family.
I was afraid that saying no to the basement meant saying no to my grandchildren.
None of those fears changed the arithmetic.
Five hundred and fifty dollars was less than eight hundred.
The little house had two rooms and a bathroom.
And the keys were in my handbag.
For once, I had made a decision before asking myself whether everybody else would approve.
It felt strange.
It also felt right.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Kept the Folded Paper in My Handbag Until My Daughter Discovered the Home I Had Chosen Without Her
My Daughter Had a Number Ready for Me, but She Had No Idea What It Would Cost Me to Hear It
Part 2 of 8
