The Boarder Who Came to Stay

THE BOARDER WHO CAME TO STAY by Diane Hanley 7/14/22

Bridget, came to live in the “Big House,” as I refer to it because of its size.  Both were stout, my house and my new boarder.  I had bought the house with a man, Jack, in Alexandria, VA.  He and his two daughters and my daughter and I all came to live in it, each with our own bedrooms and bathrooms.  It was a three-level house with a walk-up attic, a fireplace on each floor, including the basement bedroom, master bedroom and living room.  It was truly a charming colonial, all brick with a huge magnolia in the front yard, beyond the five foot hedge that lined the circular driveway.  The master bedroom was the same size as the living room.  The kitchen was adequate, but not a gourmet one, since the original owner and designer had not liked to cook, only entertain, hence the huge dining room, which had a large dormer window that overlooked the expansive brick patio and backyard with its azalea bushes and hundreds of bulbs that came up at various times all spring and summer.  The previous owner loved gardening, hated cooking.  I agreed with her on the not cooking habit and learned fast to tackle the gardening.   Following in her footsteps, I invited company to fill that dining room, asking each to bring a dish!  

While I followed in that lady’s footsteps, Bridget followed in the footsteps of the house.  She was on all her levels, stacked like a brick fireplace!  She was charming and the same age as the house, both born in 1954.  She loved perfume and like that huge magnolia tree in the front yard, seemed to give forth a sweet odor whenever I passed her by.   

How had Bridget come to be my boarder?  Well, Jack and I went our separate ways.  My daughter, in college, went to live in a shared house with friends, his one daughter to a marriage and the other to a boyfriend, continuing to work and be an on-again, off-again student.  Jack broke the lease with his renter and moved back in to his house with a much smaller mortgage, allowing him the ability to make payments to the IRS to whom, I had learned far too late, he was much indebted.  It is not a perfect world, even for teachers or for part-time real estate agents, as we both were.  

It turned out, I needed Bridget’s rent to help me make the mortgage, I’d been left to pay, and she needed a cheaper place that she could afford.   But, I was meant to own that house because Bridget was only the first of many varied people who came to live there in the 15 years I owned it, including my daughter returning home to get a masters degree locally,  my son-in-law for three years when he worked for the FDIC and commuted from Florida where my daughter and he had a house, a foster teenager for a few years and a guy from Church down on his luck.  I never lived in that house alone in all those years.

Bridget came to me a divorced mom who had lost her child by drowning in a bathtub.  She was retired military, given a medical discharge for depression and was receiving a small stipend from Navy.  She was also a recovering alcoholic who was almost six months sober when she moved in and went to AA meetings nearby in both Virginia and Maryland.  She was in debt and looking for a job.  She was, to say the least, a big risk!  But after we sat down to have our initial interview, we felt an immediate connection.  She was forthcoming, down-to-earth and excited to be able to live in such a nice house.  She loved that basement bedroom with its own fireplace, attached bath and the family room which became her almost private living room. 

I felt obligated to set some rules:  rent on time, no excuses; no visitors without first notifying me and explaining who they were; keeping her part of the house clean and tidy (I provided the vacuum in the laundry room on her level and she had use of the washer and dryer, as well).  There were a few others, but really, we just talked over everything as it came up, so neither of us ever felt we were walking on egg shells.   For instance, there was a downstairs entrance from the basement, but she told me it seemed dark and a little scary, so we both decided it was best not to use that more personal entrance, but for her to come though the back kitchen door, as I did.  The front door, with its grand entry foyer and circular staircase, we decided was for guests only.  

We never actually socialized with each other, both maintaining our own outside friendships, but we lived like sisters, sharing stories, inviting each other to special events, like her AA yearly celebrations, birthdays or Thanksgiving or Christmas parties I would have.  She helped me decorate and never took advantage of me in anyway.  If I had company, she was respectful, and the main company she had was when her Mum, who came to visit.  I bought a futon for her Mum to sleep on in the family room, her living room, since the couch that was initially there was worn out.  You’d think I had bought an expensive Tempur-Pedic mattress the way those two got excited about it!  I appreciated these two women and came to understand all they had survived in their lives in Ireland—from spousal abuse to sexual abuse, from being so poor Bridget’s Mum had to give-up  some of her children to relatives, and of course Bridget’s loss of her own son.  My life was easy compared to theirs.  I sometimes wish, looking back, that I had given more!

After the first few months, Bridget asked me to hold her credit cards and NOT give them to her unless she could prove to me that she had a good reason to use one.  It did help her.  At my work, I found out the Department of Education, in DC, was hiring and I encouraged her to  apply.  I wrote her a letter of recommendation, and soon she was employed — no more living hand-to-mouth.  She actually told me that I should increase her rent.  She felt I was cheating myself, but I believed she gave me in return a most important gift.  Being a teacher I had off from work about 6-8 weeks every summer depending on the classes I took to get my masters degree, or workshops required by my school system, etc.  I began to use some of that time for travel and Bridget had come to love both my dog and my cat.  So for no charge to me, she would watch them for weeks at a time, doing all that was necessary for each of them, allowing me to travel the world.  And she did so with such kindness and caring.  In fact when I was gone, they both slept on her bed!  

In the end, I lost her to a man.  She met him at a conference and they soon announced their engagement.  I went to the wedding of, course, but they moved a little further south, so I didn’t get to see her much.  Thinking back, I could never have made my mortgage, kept the whole house clean or gone on all those trips, if it had not been for Bridget!  Like that house that sheltered us, we protected and helped each other for almost eight years.  I never think of that big house without thinking of my big friend, in so many ways, my boarder, Bridget.