Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,27

it was like for her, since I’d also walked the path of being a single mom, homeless, and in poverty. It was part of the reason I was with Travis, though I’d never admit it to anyone. Angela’s house, which turned out to be right around the corner from ours, had been condemned, and though she’d been evicted, she refused to leave. She lived without running water or electricity.

But my compassion or curiosity had faded in losing twenty bucks in wages that day. When I stopped in front of Angela’s house, I kept my head down, trying not to stare at the several notices taped to the door, deeming it uninhabitable.

She paused before getting out. “Can you lend me money for a pack of smokes?”

“That’s an hour’s pay,” I said, wincing a little, knowing she’d try to pressure me to give it to her anyway.

She nodded instead, possibly understanding how upset I was. Maybe even understanding I didn’t really have all that much money, either.

I waited for her to grab her tray of cleaning supplies and tried to not look over toward her house. I didn’t want her to feel embarrassed, remembering what it was like when I lived at the shelter just the previous year. Some of the other cleaners whispered that she’d lost custody of her kids by that point. I didn’t know for sure, but they weren’t around much anymore when I dropped her off.

“I’m good,” she yelled over to me after closing the trunk door. I nodded, trying not to wonder what the rest of her day might be like. I just hoped she’d be ready when I came to pick her up the next morning.

When we returned to clean the old couple’s house later that week, I saw two people who’d built a life together, surrounded by photos of family, who were now ending their time with each other. The husband laughed and joked with Angela while I watched him pick up his wife’s cereal bowl, fetching her favorite blanket before she could sit down on the couch, and ached at the image of one of them being gone. It was hard not to be struck by the role I’d taken on in my clients’ lives.

I became a witness. Even odder was my invisibility and anonymity, though I spent several hours a month in their homes. My job was to wipe away dust and dirt and make lines in carpets, to remain invisible. I almost felt like I had the opportunity to get to know my clients better than any of their relatives did. I’d learn what they ate for breakfast, what shows they watched, if they’d been sick and for how long. I’d see them, even if they weren’t home, by the imprints left in their beds and tissues on the nightstand. I’d know them in a way few people did, or maybe ever would.

7

THE LAST JOB ON EARTH

After a month, Jenny’s promise of more work hadn’t come through. It didn’t seem as though she really liked me, for whatever reason. Maybe I wasn’t chatty enough, didn’t care enough about who went out on a date with whom. Maybe my grumpiness over the irregular work schedule, which made it impossible to budget and plan childcare, showed too much, or maybe I was just too grumpy in general.

Still, I took as many jobs from Jenny as possible, putting up with her poor management skills. Angela had become so unreliable, Jenny started to text me jobs in the evenings instead. I craved a normal work schedule, especially as Jenny’s original projection of twenty hours a week had turned into ten or fewer, depending on whether Angela showed up to work. But that never seemed to be addressed. I couldn’t complain about sitting outside Angela’s house for fifteen minutes in the morning, waiting for her to get dressed, making us late to our house. Jenny took complaints as not being a team player. When Angela boasted about how happy she was to get paid under the table so she could get more government money, the knuckles of my hands, already firm on the steering wheel, turned white. Her level of comfort with that bothered me. It started to feel as if we were supposed to take care of each other, but I was more concerned about caring for Mia and what was ahead.

Meanwhile, Travis treated my new job like it was a book club, something that kept me from doing the important work at home on the