I knock twice on her wooden door, and the sound echoes in the empty foyer where the elevator dropped me. This is the seventh floor in a huge building downtown.

"I told you clearly enough to push the door open without knocking!" Day one in a new job and it starts with yelling. It certainly brings back memories, which I hastily push aside. I can live through this.

I push the door open and find Mathilde, I mean Mrs. Royston, still ranting, now to herself. "It's madness, I tell you! I gave her one simple order, and she got it wrong! Wrong!"

"Good morning, Mrs. Royston."

"Yes. Yes. Just sit down." She waves me in from her rocking chair and gestures for me to sit on a chair beside her, and then she adjusts in her chair, looking flustered with the effort.

"May I help you?"

"I can sit by myself, thank you very much!" She barks. Manners would be deeply appreciated, I think, but of course not out loud. I sit down as she commanded, and she starts explaining. "This apartment is too damned big for just myself." She says, but makes a pause, probably to see if I have anything to say. I don't, and she nods at my silence. "You could obviously use a job, and I can obviously use a pair of hands to keep this place in order."

"I can't thank you enough for this opportunity, Mrs. Royston."

"Exactly where I was going, dear. This is not a job. It's barely an opportunity." Apparently unaware of how rude is to point your finger at others, she cuts my speech with her dry words. Her cold eyes don't waver as she studies my face. "I'm sure you appreciate this, so I'm wishing with all my might that you prove me right in trusting a stranger in my own house.

"Now, as much as I like talking about myself, I wanna hear about you. And I warn you: you better leave now if you're telling me you have a drunk husband in your bed right now."

"I have been a widow for six months." I say calmly.

"You don't sound too sad about it."

"He wasn't exactly a good man." I don't add details like him being a violent war veteran. He was in Iraq for a year, came back home without a hand, but that didn't deprive him from hitting me or Jeanne whenever he felt like it, or from constantly yelling at us, for that matter. And then one day he hanged himself in the garage. If you're wondering why I married him in the first place, all I can say in my defense is that he wasn't that bad before.

"Well! Good riddance!" Her words echo all across the house; this is when I notice how silent everything is up here in the seventh floor. "Now, for the obvious question that kept you awake all night: No. I can't pay you a lot."

I try to keep a neutral look and a smile in my face. I don't want her to know she's right about how hard it was to get some sleep last night. Again I stay silent, and again she nods. She obviously likes my silence better than my voice. I don't want to sound rude or ungrateful, but that makes two of us.

"So here's the deal. I can pay you six hundred a month. Like I said, it's not a lot, but I'll throw something else. It's just me in here, and I don't eat a lot. You will cook my meals, leave a plate in the fridge for my dinner, and take home everything else.

"Also, you're working here only in the mornings. You're free to go after lunch. That will allow you to look for another job in the afternoon, maybe some other part-time thing or whatever."

Despite her rude manners, and the fact that she doesn't want it to show, she cares. This warms my heart, and I offer her a big smile in return.

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Royston." I say, and my words echo through the house.