Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,49

we lacked—like bedding, bowls, cups, and something for me to sleep on. It would be a couple of days before the apartment was ready for me to move in, but they said I could come over in the evenings to clean it up if I wanted. Scrubbing the grime off the cupboards and floors of our new home was my version of a sage smudging ritual.

When my friend Sarah saw my posts about needing help, she sent me a message to ask if I needed anything. I brazenly listed off several items, nervous I would have to do without. She wrote back, offering her daughter’s twin bed. Travis came with me to pick it up. His face remained blank, emotionless, through all of this. He’d disappear into the barn if he walked into the house and saw me in tears, struggling to come to terms with my fate. We didn’t speak except out of necessity, but I figured any way he could help us get out of his house would be something he’d want to participate in. I’d been to Sarah’s house a couple of times to eat snacks and drink wine at her table on weekends when Mia was with Jamie. Now, standing on her porch, I couldn’t keep my head and shoulders from hanging low.

“It’s in here,” Sarah said, eyeing Travis. We followed her down a hallway, into her daughter’s room. “We’re getting her a queen-sized bed. She’s sort of grown out of this one.”

Maybe she thought the bed would be for Mia instead of me, but I didn’t correct her.

Before I left, she gave me a hug. “Oh!” she said. “I have something for you.” She disappeared into the laundry room and then came out with a box, setting it down on a bench in the entryway. It was a set of brand-new dishes, the color bright and blue like the robin’s eggs that Mia and I found all over the farm in the spring. My hand went to my mouth in shock as I took in the four dinner plates, salad plates, coffee cups, and bowls. New. For our new start. I threw my arms around her and thanked her, and then I took a deep breath and carried the box of dishes to the truck.

This was a start, but I had so much work to do—not only in moving but in the work it would take to afford staying.

For two weeks, I put Mia to bed at Travis’s and then packed my car with as much stuff as I could cram into it. At the new studio, I scrubbed the counters, sinks, and tub. Even the walls got a good wipe-down before I hung up the few paintings from the artwork my mom gave me. My favorites were two Barbara Lavallee prints from the book Mama, Do You Love Me? that I’d had since I was little. The iconic Alaskan illustrations reminded me of a happier time, when my family spent our summers fishing, filling the freezer in the garage with salmon and halibut. Our studio was tiny, just over three hundred square feet, with ten large windows—eight in the sleeping area and two in the section with the wooden floor—so I had to be choosy about what ended up on the wall. I tried to avoid looking at everything critically, like I had with the homeless shelter. This was yet another tiny beginning for us. I feared Mia would not see it the same way.

I’d return to Travis’s at almost midnight, after he had gone to bed, to crawl under the throw blanket on the couch. A week before Mia’s third birthday, I took the final hauls of furniture and got everything set up at the studio. I picked a weekend to move when she’d be at Jamie’s. Travis and his friend helped move the bigger stuff, even disassembling and putting together the loft bed his parents had handed down to Mia. They did it while I was cleaning the Farm House. I’d dropped Mia off at day care that morning, knowing I’d pick her up, deliver her to her dad, and never return her to the home she’d known for the past year and a half. I wanted to do it all myself and not have to ask Travis for help, but I’d hurt my back at work that week in a stupid attempt to move a bed. I had to take 800 milligrams of ibuprofen two or three times a day to