My name is Elnora Ruthanne Whitsett, and I was seventy-two years old when Carlton Lockridge stood behind his farmhouse screen door and handed me a check for three hundred dollars. I had cleaned his family’s home in Maury County, Tennessee, for twenty-six years, just as my mother had worked for the Lockridges for forty-three years before me. After Henrietta Lockridge’s funeral, I thought Carlton would invite me inside for coffee, the way his mother always had. Instead, he told me they no longer needed my services. His voice was cold, and he wouldn’t look me in the eye.

I took the check with trembling fingers and walked back to my little house on the property. Henrietta had been more than an employer. Every Friday, we shared coffee and biscuits, talking about everything from the weather to the memories that came with growing old. She knew my struggles, my family, and the sacrifices I had made. Losing her had already left a hole in my heart. Now, standing alone with three hundred dollars in my hand, I wondered how I would pay my bills. I had given that family twenty-six years of loyalty, yet it seemed I could be dismissed in a single sentence.