Teresa rolled her back through the kitchen and into her bedroom. Before she helped her out of the wheelchair, she fluffed up her pillow and made sure the sheets were smoothed, falling into the regular rhythm of the nursing home. She wondered how her former patients were doing and if any of them had passed on since she left.
“You’re a good nurse,” Miss Janie bragged on her.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Teresa would far rather have been told that she was a good daughter than a good nurse, but that wouldn’t be the truth.
When she went back through the kitchen, she checked on the pot of beans and ham cooking on the top of the stove and the enchilada casserole that was ready for the oven. The clock said it was still two hours until noon, so she put half a dozen cookies on a plate and carried them out to the porch.
“Thought y’all might want a little something to go with your coffee. Where’s Sam? He was here a few minutes ago.”
“He went home, but said he’d be back after a while for some of those beans,” Noah answered as he picked up a cookie from the plate and dipped the edge in his coffee. “We were talking about the future. What do you plan to do after . . . ?” He stammered over the words. “After Miss Janie isn’t with us anymore? Do you and Kayla really think you might put in a place for the old folks to go have lunch and play games?”
“That’s just a pipe dream. We’d need money for something like that. I haven’t made any plans,” she said.
“I’ll try to find some houses to clean. I bet I can make a living just working for the folks from here to Sulphur Springs. To give the community a place is a pipe dream, like Teresa said, but maybe if we work hard and save our money, we can do that sometime in the future,” Kayla added.
“Would it make a difference to either of you if you started drawing a monthly check from the trust fund that Miss Janie set up for both of you?” he asked. “Maybe later this week, we’ll ask Sam to come over for a little while, and we’ll all three go to the bank and get y’all set up. What we need in this area is someone to do elderly babysitting, or like Kayla said, clean houses, or maybe even start a little business if there was a building available. In the big cities you can find folks who can do that, but—”
“Trust fund?” Teresa butted in.
“When Miss Janie’s folks died, the money they had went to her and my granddad. Aunt Ruthie owned the oil rights to most of the county, so she had a healthy income from that. From what I can see, Miss Janie never touched that money and lived on what she made working at the school. Long story short is that the three of us—you, me, and Kayla—are inheriting a lot, but in trust. We’ll get a certain amount each month, but we won’t be able to touch the principal. She wanted to be certain that we wouldn’t get old and have nothing—Miss Janie’s words, not mine,” he explained. “You don’t have to get a job. You can pretty much do whatever you want. Go back to school to get your degree or even take a year or two to decide.” He paused. “Or start that business y’all have been talking about. Give it all some serious thought, though. Don’t jump into something and then decide you don’t want to do it. That would break Sam’s and all the rest of the folks’ hearts.”
“Are you serious?” Kayla gasped. “I thought the inheritance was getting to be here with her a few months or weeks.”
“I’m very serious. Of course, until she’s gone, you will earn a paycheck each week like I promised,” he told them.
Teresa could hardly take in what he’d said. Part of her was happy; the other was angry. “We don’t deserve this, Noah.”
“Doesn’t matter if any of us deserves it. It’s what she wants done, and truth be told, I think she’d like for you to work together and give back to the community,” Noah answered.
Teresa began to pace up and down the screened-in porch. “That’s a small price to pay for not coming back to see her, and it’s something we’d both enjoy, so we wouldn’t get any