screaming and reaching out for me. I overheard her talking to a parent once about how hard it was to work somewhere that paid her so little. “I went to college for this,” she’d said angrily. I hated leaving Mia with her, hated that I couldn’t afford to support a place that paid the workers at least close to a livable wage.
One morning, after a particularly difficult goodbye, I got in my car and cried, allowing myself a couple of minutes to give the sadness the love, attention, and affection it deserved. I’d had to drop Mia off a little earlier than usual, but the struggle to get out the door had made us late. My frustrations showed, and I walked away without blowing a kiss goodbye. Nightmarish thoughts of my own mortality consumed me. Like, what if I died in a car accident and her last memory of me was walking away, leaving her screaming and crying with strangers?
Those thoughts crept into my mind that morning more than usual. I knew I’d spend the next two days working at a house in a pocket of Camano Island that lacked cell phone reception. I didn’t like being away from Mia, didn’t like leaving her in a day care that didn’t seem like a warm and caring environment, and I especially hated the thought that if anything happened to her during the day, no one would be able to contact me. But the job had been too good to pass up.
“It’s a move-out clean,” Lonnie had told me on the phone. “We don’t do those as much anymore.”
For most cleaning jobs, Classic Clean gave the potential clients an estimated rate. They’d meet with the owner, inspect the level of work that needed to be done, and make their best guess on the amount of time (and sometimes people) it would take to do it. Regular clients, who had weekly, biweekly, or monthly cleans, had set numbers of hours and rates, but the construction and move-out cleans normally had a budget to work around.
My schedule had about five or six houses rotating on it, but those were all bimonthly or even monthly cleans, meaning most of my paychecks had about twenty hours total for two weeks. I couldn’t get another job because my schedule varied from week to week, so I got caught in a bind of waiting for more hours to become available, no matter what the job might be. When Lonnie called to ask if I’d be interested in doing a move-out clean, I gave her an enthusiastic yes, even thanking her for asking me to do it instead of her other employees.
The job was a double-wide trailer just down the street from another client’s house that I had started to call the Chef’s House, because of the gigantic stovetop. The owner, on the one rare occasion he’d been home, stood in his kitchen next to it, taking up the entire space between the stove and the island in the center. “I had to take out a personal loan to pay for it,” he said, running his hand gently over the outer edge. “It’s probably worth twice as much as your car!” Though I didn’t doubt the truth of that statement, I tried not to frown at him pointing out that I drove an older Subaru wagon and instead asked if there were any special instructions he had for cleaning it. In two weeks’ time between cleanings, the entire stovetop area would get completely covered with grease, thanks to his affinity for using the deep fryer on the counter and the countless bottles of infused olive oil. He must have used the fryer several times a week because the entire house was drenched in its oily stench. “Yes,” he said, pointing for emphasis. “Do not use the scrubby side of sponges!” so I wouldn’t leave any scratches, and I’d have to go through five or six rags instead.
When I pulled into the driveway of the double-wide for the move-out clean, I was already ten minutes late. Pam was there, along with the coworker I’d have for the duration of the day. I rushed over to join them. “Sorry for being late,” I said quickly, trying to sound sincere. “Mia didn’t want me to leave her this morning.”
Pam huffed a little, mumbling about kids needing to understand and respect their parents’ need to work. I didn’t ask her to repeat herself or clarify what she said, imagining that she’d been in