Previously: Retired teacher Lucinda remembers her favorite student Vernon. Reality interrupts when another boarder Nancy scolds her for talking to her daughter Shirley. Lucinda remembers Vernon decided to marry Nancy but instead was drafted. Her last advice to him was less than kind. She tries to advise Cassie but she shrugs it off by saying life is what it is.
Maybe life is that simple.” Lucinda decided if a student had made that observation in an essay she would have scrawled across the top, give this more thought.

“I don’t know. To say mommy’s the way she is because of something that happened to her a long time ago seems awful simple to me.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Lucinda knew Cassie wasn’t, however. “How are you going to live after — I mean — financially?”

“Oh, daddy left me enough money in my insurance policy to live on.” Cassie’s face lit. “And then I git whatever he left mommy that she doesn’t spend. I’ll sell the house — of course, I won’t git much for it. It’s such a firetrap. Did I tell you how you can git out of this room if there’s a fire in the hall?”

“No. That might be useful information.”

Cassie stood to walk to the window and lean out. Lucinda followed her and peered out too.

“There’s a good sturdy drainpipe right outside here.” Cassie pointed to it. “You can climb down it. See, there’s even places to put your feet. Those thingies that strap the pipe to the wall. It’s right next to the honeysuckle trellis, but I wouldn’t try to climb down it. The wood is rotten.”

“Are you certain the drainpipe would hold my weight?”

“Oh sure.” Cassie lost interest in looking at the pipe, walked back to the rocker and sat. “The reason I know is because when Nancy used to have this room she’d climb down the drainpipe at night after that goofy lookin’ Vernon Singleberry left after one of their dates. “She had that handsome guy from the movie set awaitin’ on her at his motel. She always said it was Warren Beatty but between me and you I think it was really his stand-in.”

“Who she said fathered her child,” Lucinda filled in. She returned to the bed to sit.

“You know what’s funny? He wasn’t even the father.”

“I know,” Lucinda whispered.

“Yeah. You see, she told Vernon she was already married, but that guy wouldn’t marry her until after a blood test.”

Lucinda saw how Cassie relished the telling and the retelling of the juiciest gossip ever to emerge from her mother’s boardinghouse.

“And the test showed the baby was Vernon’s.” Lucinda wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

“Yep, and that guy dropped her like a hot potato.” Cassie nodded and resumed rocking. “Then Nancy didn’t have the nerve to tell Vernon the truth.”

“Yes, I know.” Lucinda’s heart was breaking once again as she remembered Vernon’s numbing grief.

“Anyway, after I sell the house I’ll git me a nice apartment somewhere, maybe with a nice view of somethin’ pretty, like a lake, to look at.”

“Do you think you’ll get a job?” She resumed her questions on Cassie’s personal life so she would not have to think about Vernon any more.

“Maybe I’ll babysit. I like that.”

“You have the ability to do more. I know you do.” Playing the part of the cheerleader always lifted Lucinda’s spirits.

“It’s too late.”

“It’s never too late.” Clichés always were comforting.

Cassie stopped rocking. Her shoulders slumped. The thrill of the rhapsodic movement was gone. “I could have gotten a job doin’ somethin’ but mommy wouldn’t hear of it. You see, those doctors said I wasn’t crazy enough to go to a mental hospital, but they said I — I never learned — well, what most people learn to git along in life — you know, out workin’ and with adults. Now babies, I love to be around babies.

“I’m sorry.” Why she was sorry, Lucinda did not know, but the sentiment was genuine.

“I’ll be all right. It’ll be downright heaven to live where I want to and do what I like without mommy tellin’ me I can’t or shouldn’t.”

“So you’re just waiting for her to die.”

“If there’s one thing havin’ a club foot teaches you it’s patience.” Cassie cocked her head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’s wrong. They’ve all stopped now. Aunt Bertha’s probably cryin’ in her room, and mommy’s off cleanin’ somethin’ or other.” She stood and went to the door.

“You don’t have to leave now, Cassie.” No matter how sad the conversation, Lucinda was enjoying it nonetheless.

“Oh no. It’s time for my soap operas.” And she was out the door.

“How sad. How terribly, terribly sad,” she mumbled, allowing herself to fall back onto her pillow. “At least she took my mind off Vernon. I shouldn’t have kept my nose stuck in my papers that day. And I shouldn’t have been so flippant about his going to Vietnam. But it was true. More people are killed on the highway than in . . .” Realizing how foolish her rationalization sounded, Lucinda stopped in mid-sentence.