Chapter 22
“You too.”
That summer, Grace applied to nursing school.
She didn’t tell Arthur.
She didn’t tell Helen.
She barely told us.
For six weeks, every time the mail came, she acted as if she wasn’t waiting.
Then one Wednesday afternoon, there was a large envelope.
Grace stood in the kitchen holding it.
“Open it,” I said.
“I will.”
She didn’t.
“Grace.”
“I’m enjoying not knowing.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. Right now, I have both possibilities.”
Annie entered carrying crayons.
“Did you get in?”
“We don’t know.”
“Open it.”
Grace laughed.
“Everyone is very demanding.”
She finally tore the envelope.
Her eyes moved across the first line.
Then stopped.
“Well?” I asked.
She covered her mouth.
Annie started bouncing.
“You got in!”
Grace nodded.
We both crashed into her.
For the next minute, we were just the three of us in our small kitchen, laughing and crying and trying to hold one another at the same time.
Then Grace reached for the phone.
She called Helen first.
Arthur found out ten minutes later because Helen called him before Grace could.
He arrived at our apartment carrying flowers.
Grace opened the door.
“You weren’t supposed to know yet.”
Arthur frowned.
“Apparently your friends are unreliable.”
“Helen told you?”
“Immediately.”
He handed her the flowers.
They were not roses.
They were daisies.
Grace smiled.
“My mother liked daisies.”
Arthur blinked.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
She accepted them anyway.
A month before classes began, Grace made one final decision about Eleanor’s trust.
There was money left after tuition and books.
Arthur assumed she would save it for future semesters.
Grace did something else.
She asked Samuel Bell whether the trust could be amended.
“It can,” he told her, “depending on the purpose.”
Grace changed its name.
The Eleanor Whitmore Education Fund became the Eleanor Whitmore and Laura Foster Education Fund.
My mother’s name.
Arthur read the document in silence.
“I thought,” Grace explained, “if there’s money left when I graduate, maybe it could help someone else.”
Arthur looked at her.
“Someone else?”
May you like
“A student raising younger siblings. Or caring for family. Someone who thinks school has become impossible.”
Arthur sat down.
