How could I disagree? I was still trying to understand it all myself.
Echo took Mr. Panda to her room. I dressed quickly and when she returned, we went down to breakfast together, Mrs. Westington, who was an early riser, had already eaten her breakfast, which consisted mainly of some pieces of orange, a bowl of oatmeal, and a cup of tea with honey. Echo and I squeezed fresh orange juice and Mrs. Westington put up some eggs to boil. Echo liked them soft and so did I. The table was set and there was sliced homemade bread as well as jams and butter, and fresh fruit.
"Tyler uses my husband's old office for his tutoring," Mrs. Westington suddenly blurted. With her cane she pointed at the clock over the refrigerator. "'He'll be here in less than a half hour, so don't you two dillydally."
She signed what she had said to me and Echo stopped smiling and looked serious.
"He doesn't know anything about you yet," Mrs. Westington told me. "But I'll speak to him about helping you."
"Maybe he won't want to do it," I said. I wasn't disabled and he was a specialist in working with the disabled. although I had a self-image that was probably not much better than the image a disabled person had of herself.
"Maybe he won't: maybe he will. Take a letter," she added, which was her way of telling me to remember something. "If I could read the future. I sure as hell wouldn't have made the mistakes I made. But you don't cry over spilt milk, girl. You wipe it up and start over. If you dwell on the past, you'll have no future." she concluded, nodding at her own wisdom.
"I guess you're right about that," I said, recalling my first thoughts this morning.
She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, you think so, do you? Well, that's hopeful. My granddad used to say. 'Youth is wasted on the young. Wisdom wouldn't be so bad if it didn't come with age.' Eat up," she added, bringing us the eggs. You want coffee or tea?"
"I'm fine with this," I said, nodding at the milk.
Echo watched me crack my eggs open carefully from the small end down and then she did the same with her eggs, imitating my every move. My father used to do it this way. He was meticulous about it and it left an impression on me. I loved imitating things he did anyway.
Echo smiled and I caught Mrs. Westington gazing at her, a warming in her eyes and softening in her lips. She realized I was looking at her and quickly turned away, banging the pot in the sink as if she was upset with herself for being caught showing warm affection.
"That cleaning girl of mine comes today. I'm sure she'll be as late as ever. No one pays much attention to time anymore."
she muttered, "How I wish I was younger and stronger so I could do my own housework again. Hateful thing, age. It makes you too dependant on the kindness of others and believe me, girl, you got to dig deeply into some people to find a drop of kindness in their hearts."
She took so deep a breath. I thought she was going to keel over. "Are you all right. Mrs. Westing- ton?" I asked quickly.
"What? Oh, yeah fine, fine," she said. but I was sure some arrow of pain had shot through her. "It's my own fault jawing away like this. All talk and no cider," she mumbled.
Echo seemed to sense Mrs. Westington's moods from the way she held her head and shoulders. I saw how she reacted immediately, a look of worry spreading over her face. What would happen to her if something happened to Mrs. Westington? I wondered. Her mother was as good as dead to her and she didn't know her father. Seeing her vulnerability caused me to recall my own when Mama had been so sick. It was terrifying for me and I had all my senses and an older sister. Mrs. Westington was Echo's lifeline to the world, even the small and restricted world she had.
"Maybe now that I'm here, I can do the work. Mrs. Westington. I don't mind. I used to help my mother with her house chores."
"What? No. no. I wouldn't take the work away from Lourdes. She needs the money, and besides, you'll have other things to do. It will be enough if you look after your bedroom." she said, and then leaned forward to look more clearly out the kitchen window, "Just look at that foolish man toiling away out there on those grapevines, You ever see such stubbornness? He thinks if he clings onto a piece of the past, he'll get me wanting to start it all again. No matter how I tell him he's wasting his time, he's at it. Don't know why I kept him around me all these years."
I smiled to myself. Already I knew she would have a hard time surviving without Trevor
Washington. When it came to him, she was all bark and no bite, although she would never admit it. I was sure it was the same for Trevor. Neither would admit how much he or she needed the other. but I could see they had grown used to each other's ways. They bobbed and swayed to keep their world in balance, each easily adjusting to the other's moods, twists, and turns.
"This bread's delicious." I said. I had smeared what looked like homemade blackberry jam over it.
"Better than that store bought stuff Trevor brings around from time to time," Mrs. Westington said. "That man would eat dog food if I didn't invite him to eat here with us."
"I probably shouldn't eat so much," I said, pushing the plate away. I had already devoured two thick pieces. "I was supposed to be losing weight. I promised my uncle I would, He had a costume for me that I never could really fit into even though we both pretended I did."
"Don't you think about any of that now. It's over and done with. You've been through enough grief and that eats away at you as it is. And don't you go on one of them newfangled diets while you're living here neither!" she warned, waving her cane. "People will say I starved you, and no one ever walked out of Loretta Westington's house hungry."
I laughed. "I doubt that will happen, Mrs. Westington. I doubt I will ever look starved."
She just grunted. She'd known me less than a week, but she knew enough not to bet on my having the discipline to trim down. Was I fat because I hated myself or did I hate myself because I was fat? It was like being caught screaming at your own screaming in an echo chamber.
As soon as we both finished eating, I cleaned up our dishes and started to wash everything.
"Just leave it for Lourdes," Mrs. Westington said. "I pay her too much as it is for what she does around here. Most of this house isn't used. I could replace her with a new vacuum cleaner."
She didn't mean that, but for some reason, perhaps for many reasons, she was reluctant to say nice things about anyone or invest any faith in anyone. Maybe that was all related to her daughter and the way her daughter had treated her and her own daughter.