Then she reached over and took my hand.
Afterward, Willa hugged her.
“Thank you.”
Margaret pulled back.
“Don’t thank me. Thank Rose. And Alice. And your mother.”
Then she looked seriously at Willa.
“And don’t forget what you owe.”
“I won’t. Someday.”
Margaret shook her head.
“Not someday. Someday is how people wait fifty years. When the right person appears, you’ll know.”
That fall, Willa began college.
She calls me every Thursday night.
I don’t think she deliberately chose Thursday.
It simply happened.
Margaret calls every Sunday from Oregon.
I still clean houses.
Now I have eleven clients and one employee.
Her name is Dani.
She is twenty-three and has a four-year-old son.
When I met her, she was struggling badly.
I pay her more than anyone ever paid me when I was starting out.
On snow days, she brings her son along.
I still carry Margaret’s old brass key on my key ring.
It doesn’t unlock anything anymore.
But sometimes, when I’m nervous, I rub my thumb across it.
And now I have another Thursday client.
His name is Harold Dean.
He’s eighty-three.
His wife died last winter.
The first Thursday I cleaned his house, I noticed a cold cup of tea sitting on the counter.
For one terrifying second, I remembered Margaret.
I searched every room.
He was fine.
He had simply fallen asleep in his recliner.
But something became clear to me that day.
I finally understood what a Thursday could mean to someone who lived alone.
The following week, when noon came, I didn’t go outside to eat in my car.
Instead, I made two chicken-salad sandwiches with grapes and walnuts—Margaret’s recipe.
I placed them on real plates and folded two cloth napkins.
Then I walked into Mr. Dean’s den.
“Would you like to have lunch with me?”
