Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,68
for another class. I had to work constantly. I had to prove my worth for receiving government benefits.
Every once in a while, though, to escape, I went on dates. I’d call up an old boyfriend or meet someone online, or my cousin Jenn would introduce me to someone. For a few awkward hours, I could return to the person I was outside of motherhood, outside of being a maid. It felt like make-believe, maybe more for me than for my date. I knew none of it was real. I’d talk about books and movies in a way that sounded foreign to myself. Sometimes, that parallel, other life was what I needed to mentally remove myself from my own. But dating soon became less fun, less of a game, making my loneliness or sense of isolation more acute. A text gone unanswered or a call going straight to voice mail meant rejection, proof that I was unlovable. I hated that neediness, and I was sure that men could sense it, that it lingered like a pungent odor. Additionally, socializing opened me up to the painful reminder that most people had normal lives. They afforded concerts, takeout, trips, all without losing a night’s sleep. Despite Mia’s constant touch and pull and her sticky hand finding mine, I ached for affection, for touch, for love. I never saw a time I wouldn’t crave that. I wanted to be strong and not need it, but I always would.
I walked along a deep precipice of hopelessness. Each morning brought a constant, lip-chewing stress over making it to work and getting home without my car breaking down. My back ached constantly. I dampened my hunger pangs with coffee. It felt impossible to climb out of this hole. My only real hope was school: an education would be my token to freedom. It had to be, otherwise it was a waste to invest so much precious time. Like a prisoner, I calculated how long I had left until I’d completed enough credits to qualify for a degree. Three more years. The Pell Grant covered tuition but not textbooks, if my classes required any. Sometimes I could get by with purchasing a used, older edition off of Amazon. Three years of dark nights and weekends spent over books, writing reports, and taking tests. This life of working as a maid, of constant subservience, was temporary. I cried myself to sleep some nights, my only comfort knowing this was not how my story would end.
So I stopped trying to have a social life and filled my free weekends with work instead. I took on a new client, a four-hour clean forty-five minutes away on the Saturdays Mia was with Jamie in Port Townsend. This house, the Weekend House, had clients who were always there, but we never got to know one another. A young couple lived there with their weeks-old baby. The grandma had been staying with them to help, and her parting gift was a bimonthly housecleaning.
They didn’t want the housecleaner there when they weren’t home, which was fine, but that made it difficult to clean around them while they obliviously used a kitchen counter I’d just wiped to make toast or walked through a floor I’d just mopped. They chatted with friends who came over for baby play dates, serving them food like I wasn’t there.
On my second visit to clean, I drove out to find their front door locked. After knocking a few times on the door, I peered into the garage window, cupping my hands on the unusually clean glass, and saw it was empty. Even though it was a Saturday morning, I called Lonnie’s cell phone.
“They’re not here, Lonnie,” I said, nearly yelling, showing my anger at how frustrating that was, something I rarely did. “Did they ever say anything about leaving a key?”
“No,” she said. “The mother just told me they’d always be there. Let me call them and see what’s up. Maybe they’re just running errands and are on their way home.”
Because I wouldn’t get reimbursed, I tried not to add up how much that trip cost me in gas, but I knew without thinking too much that it would be around ten bucks, more than I made an hour before taxes and the cost of washing my own rags. When Lonnie called back to tell me they forgot, I pressed my lips together in frustration, trying not to cry.
“Do they want me to come tomorrow or something?” I asked. “I can