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.
Shirley sneaked through the door and tiptoed across the rough wooden floor. “Mrs. Cambridge?”
With effort Lucinda sat up. “Shirley, I really don’t think—“
“I know,” the little girl interrupted her, “but I have to ask you something before mama finds me.”
“You should be asking your mother.”
“Mama won’t tell me.” Shirley sat next to her. “Ever since you moved in here after Christmas, mama didn’t like you. It’s almost like you know some terrible secret.”
“Please, Shirley. I don’t think I can take another outburst from your mother. I’m so tired.” She resisted the temptation to recline.
“You know a secret.” A twinkle entered Shirley’s eyes.
Lucinda shrugged. “It’s not really a secret.”
“Please.”
“Yes, it’s a secret.”
“She scooted closer. “It has something to do with me.”
“Yes.”
“And Vernon Singleberry.”
Nancy blew through the door like a Texas tornado. “Shirley!”
“Oh no,” the girl muttered as she slipped from the bed.
“I can’t afford to miss time at the beauty shop, but I will stay home to make you obey me.” She wagged a finger at her daughter. “You were gone ten minutes before one of the customers asked me where you were!”
Shirley walked swiftly to the door. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
“You’ve always been like an angel.” She grabbed her daughter and held her by the shoulders. “But last few days you seem determined to defy me.”
“I’ll never do it again.”
“Thank you. Now wait for me downstairs. I have to have a few words with the teacher woman.”
Before Shirley left she glanced toward Lucinda with apprehension.
“Please don’t attack me again.” Subconsciously the old teacher rubbed her chest. “I’m sick, and I can’t take it.”
“I can’t take it no more either.” Nancy sighed. “We’re moving out tomorrow.”
“I hold no ill will against you.” Lucinda leaned forward, trying to hold back her tears.
“For the past ten years you’ve been watching us, Shirley and me. At the grocery, on the street, in the park. I’ve seen you.”
“I meant nothing by it.” She shook her head.
“Then you move in here.” Nancy pinched her lips and took a couple of steps. “You say it’s because you can’t afford any better, but I don’t believe it. I think you wanted a chance to win your way into my child’s heart. You wanted to hug and pet on her the way you never could have touched Vernon.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Lucinda leaned back in resignation.
“Of course I’m right. That’s why I’m taking Shirley away from you, and I don’t want you to follow.”
“I promise.” She paused, considering whether if she should add a condition to her pledge to stay away. “But you have to tell Shirley the truth about Vernon.”
“The truth? That her mother is a damned fool?” Nancy’s spine slightly buckled in acknowledgement of her own vulnerability.
“We’ve all been fools and made mistakes that left us miserable.” For once, Lucinda did not sound as though she were delivering a lecture in post-modern literature. “If we forget the mistakes then all we have is misery.” She paused and waved in the direction of the door. “Do you want to end your life like Mrs. Lawrence?”
“Hell no.”
She leaned forward. “If you forget Vernon, if you don’t share his memory with Shirley you will. I will stake my life that Mrs. Lawrence did something long ago that she regretted and spent years forgetting. Now she’s just a bitter old woman.”
“I won’t be like her,” Nancy spat back with a stinging denial.
“Even worse,” she whispered, “you could end up like me, a pathetically lonely spinster who only lives for her memories that both comfort and torture her.”
“We’ll be gone tomorrow, and that will be that.” Nancy turned for the door.
“No, it won’t.” Lucinda realized she had difficulty with her breathing.
“Good bye.”