Big as a refrigerator, permanently grumpy-looking, somehow kinder than most people I had met.
Mrs. Rhode came in every Tuesday and Thursday morning at exactly eight o’clock.
The first time I served her, she stared at my nametag.
“James,” she said. “You look tired enough to collapse into my waffle.”
“Long week.”
She snorted.
“Try being eighty-five.”
That was our introduction.
After that she always requested my section.
Sometimes she insulted my hair.
Sometimes she questioned whether I had ever smiled in my life.
One morning she announced I looked slightly more alive than usual as though it were high praise.
She wasn’t sweet.
Not exactly.
But she noticed things.
And sometimes attention matters more than kindness.
One afternoon she stopped me while I carried groceries home.
“You live nearby, James?”
“Couple houses down.”
She looked me over carefully.
“You want to make decent money?”
I froze.
“Doing what?”
She opened her front door.
“Come inside.”
Over tea that tasted like boiled grass, she got straight to the point.
“I’m dying.”
I nearly choked.
She rolled her eyes.
“Oh relax. I’m eighty-five, not immortal.”
Then she explained everything. Doctors. Time running out. No reliable family. She needed help with groceries, appointments, repairs, medication.
“And in return?” I asked.
She looked at me quietly.
“When I’m gone, everything becomes yours.”
It sounded ridiculous.
It probably was.
But I needed money, and something inside me wanted to believe her.
So I shook her hand.
At first our arrangement stayed practical. I drove her to appointments, fixed cabinet hinges, sorted medication, changed light bulbs, cleaned gutters, and carried groceries.
She complained constantly.
“You’re late.”
“It’s been four minutes.”
“Still late.”
I called her impossible.
She answered:
“Yet you keep coming back.”
Without either of us noticing, things changed.
Dinner invitations appeared. Terrible meals became routine. We watched game shows together while she yelled answers at contestants. She told stories about her life, and eventually I told stories about mine.
