The call had ended with my daughter angry.
The silence that followed was harder than the argument.
For ten days, I heard nothing from Sarah.
I didn't know whether she was waiting for me to apologize or whether she had decided to leave the matter alone.
I didn't know what Greg thought about my choice.
I only knew that neither of them contacted me.
I tried to keep myself occupied.
There were things to arrange in the little house.
There were belongings to sort through and practical details to consider before the November first deadline.
The Millers had been generous in allowing me to remain in the farmhouse after Arthur died, and I wanted to leave it in good order.
They were preparing to bring their son, his wife, and their new baby back to the property.
They needed the house.
I understood that.
There was no reason for my circumstances to become their burden.
So I concentrated on what needed doing.
But a person's mind doesn't always cooperate with a list.
Mine kept returning to Sarah.
I thought about calling her in the morning.
By afternoon, I would decide to give her more time.
At night, I wondered whether waiting was making things worse.
I didn't want to turn a disagreement about housing into a lasting break between us.
At the same time, I couldn't pretend the offer had not hurt.
I was old enough to know that a person could love her family and still feel wounded by them.
I was also old enough to know that explaining the wound didn't guarantee anyone would understand it.
So I waited.
The porch swing became part of my evening routine.
I would sit outside and watch the trucks line up near the grain elevator.
Sometimes I counted them.
Sometimes I simply watched their lights move along the road.
The swing creaked whenever I shifted my weight.
That small sound was often the only thing I heard close by.
I had wanted a home where I could be alone when I chose to be.
I hadn't expected to feel so lonely once I had it.
There was a difference between quiet that belonged to you and silence imposed by someone you loved.
I was learning that the hard way.
Still, I didn't regret renting the house.
I reminded myself of that whenever I started thinking I should have accepted the basement.
The rent was five hundred and fifty dollars.
I could manage it.
I would have to pay for electricity separately, and I would need to watch my spending.
But the numbers worked.
I could live without handing over most of my Social Security payment.
I could decide how to use my time.
I could visit my grandchildren without having to prove I had earned the privilege.
That was important to me.
I wanted to be their grandmother.
I didn't want every visit to feel like a shift I was expected to cover.
I had no way of knowing whether Sarah had thought about the offer in those terms.
Maybe she believed she was being practical.
Maybe Greg had convinced her that the arrangement was fair.
Maybe they had never stopped to consider how it would sound to a woman who had spent her whole life working and raising a family.
I couldn't know what they were thinking.
I could only judge what had happened.
And what had happened was simple.
They offered me a room.
They attached a price.
They expected four days of childcare.
I chose another home.
Sarah was angry.
Then she stopped calling.
That was all I knew.
On the evening of the tenth day, I was preparing for supper when I heard a pickup pull up outside.
The sound made me look toward the window.
I recognized the vehicle.
For a moment, I didn't move.
The engine stopped.
A door opened and shut.
Then I saw Sarah get out.
She was on the passenger side.
Greg came around after her.
I could tell even from inside that something was wrong.
Sarah's eyes were red and swollen.
She looked as though she had been crying for a long time.
My first thought was that someone had been hurt.
I moved toward the door before I had time to think through the possibilities.
Then I saw Greg's hands.
He was carrying a yellow legal pad.
The sight of it struck me as odd.
I couldn't imagine why he would bring paperwork to my little house that evening.
I opened the screen door before either of them reached the porch.
Sarah looked at me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
I wanted to ask what had happened.
I wanted to reach for her.
I wanted to say that whatever was wrong, she could tell me.
But the last time we'd spoken, she had accused me of choosing a stranger over my own family.
I wasn't sure what kind of welcome she wanted from me now.
So I stood aside.
They came in.
Sarah moved quietly toward the table.
Greg followed, still holding the legal pad.
My kitchen was small.
There wasn't much room to move around each other, and the table was the natural place to sit.
Greg put the pad down.
I looked from him to Sarah.
She kept her eyes lowered.
Greg opened the pad and turned it so the writing faced me.
Then he spoke.
"Martha, I need to tell you something about the offer we made."
I looked at him.
He wasn't avoiding my eyes now.
That was different from the afternoon at Sarah's house, when he'd stared at the salt shaker while the two circles around the eight hundred dollars sat between us.
This time, he seemed determined to say what he had come to say.
"I was the one who worked out that eight hundred dollars."
He paused.
"Sarah wasn't the one who came up with that amount."
I looked at the yellow pages.
The first sheet was covered in his handwriting, from the top all the way down.
I couldn't tell what it meant yet.
I only knew he had brought it with him, and that he had chosen to come to my house to explain something he hadn't explained before.
Sarah sat beside him.
Her eyes were still red.
I remembered the paper from their kitchen table.
The single figure.
The two circles.
The way it had been pushed toward me as though the decision had already been made.
Now there was another sheet of paper in front of me.
This one was filled with writing.
I didn't reach for it.
Greg turned the pad a little farther in my direction.
He looked straight at me.
I waited.
Whatever he had written, he had brought it here himself.
And for the first time since I had refused the basement, the three of us were sitting together in the same room, facing the matter instead of leaving it between us.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The Yellow Legal Pad Held Greg’s Side of the Story, and I Was Finally Ready to Hear It
My Daughter Had a Number Ready for Me, but She Had No Idea What It Would Cost Me to Hear It
Part 4 of 8
