about her."
She walked down the hallway to the front
entrance, pushed the coat hanger back, rolled up the
old rug, and began to wash the wood floor. As she
worked, she continued to mumble under her breath. I
thought I heard a slew of curse words. so I pretended
not to hear and instead started to clean up the kitchen.
Once in a while, back at Grandmother Emma's house,
her maid. Nancy, let me help.
I found the dish soap and began to do the dishes
in the sink. As I worked. I suddenly thought that
maybe this was what Grandmother Emma had meant
when she'd told me my great- aunt Frances needed
me. She didn't need me to work on her farm, but she
needed me to help with taking care of her home, with
taking care of her.
"Oh, my, my," Great-aunt Frances said, coming
to the kitchen doorway when her soap opera had
ended. "Look at you. Not here ten minutes and you're
helping out like a little trouper already. That's the way
I was when I was your age, too. I always helped out.
My sister never helped out. She always said. 'We have
servants for that. Frances. If you do their work, what
will they do? You'll put them out of work. Or you'll
make them lazy.'
"Now, guess what I have here for you." she said, coming into the kitchen and going to a drawer under the counter. She opened the drawer and took
out a large manila envelope. "You know what this is?" I shook my head.
"It's all the arrangements for your school." She
handed the envelope to me.
I wiped my hands on a dish towel and opened