She needed the money and was grateful to have it and resented both the need and the gratitude. She dealt with that resentment by taking it out on her employer, namely me. Not in her work, of course—it would have been a mortal sin, in the Widow’s world, to shirk her duty. So the food was good, if unimaginative, and the boards were worn thin with scrubbing. Meanwhile she bristled and argued if I made any suggestions, and if I went so far as to express a preference, she would gaze at the ceiling and tell God in no uncertain terms what she thought of young wastrels who treated the world as if it
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