Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,72

You never take responsibility. Everything is always someone else’s fault. What’s that going to teach Mia? What are you going to teach her?” I reached up to dust the chandelier above the dining room table.

“I’ll teach Emilia lots of things!” he said, which made me wonder, again, if everyone in Port Townsend still called her Emilia. He refused to call her Mia because it was a nickname I’d given her. I tried to explain she’d given it to herself and that she got mad if I called her by her full name. He’d tried to talk her into a nickname that sounded like Mee-lah for a while, but it never stuck. Every time he said it, I wondered if she subconsciously changed identities when she was there.

“Jamie, you don’t even know how to swim,” I said. It was odd for me to speak this way to him. Working full-time, doing everything on my own, had empowered me. I no longer chose to allow him to make me feel bad about myself. “What about when she brings home math homework? Or has to write a report? How are you going to help her with that?”

I didn’t say these things to him as a jab. These were actual concerns. Jamie always talked about studying for his GED, or he promised that this summer would be the one when he’d learn how to swim, but he never did any of the things he said he would. Instead, he always had an excuse or a rambling story about how it was his mom’s fault because he had to help raise his younger brother. Now it was my fault for forcing him into fatherhood, into a life he never wanted.

“I know I’m a good father,” he said. I could imagine his posture, puffing out his chest, probably pointing to it, maybe looking in a mirror. “I know I am because she needs me.” I heard him take a quick breath. Ah. He was outside, smoking a cigarette and pacing.

It was my turn to point into the air, walking between the living room and the bedroom, duster in hand. I had watched him make a pouty face, pretending to cry until Mia turned to him and gave him one last hug whenever I picked her up. “You’ve manipulated her to need you.”

That pushed Jamie over the edge. I knew his ranting and yelling well. “Everyone in town talks about what a fuckin’ loser you are,” he said. “All you do is whine about stuff online, on Facebook and that stupid website you keep a diary on. You don’t have any real friends. No one’s ever going to love you and your saggy boobs.”

With that, I hung up on him. It always got worse after he turned down that road. He usually brought up how I was too fat, or too ugly, or too skinny, or too tall. The “saggy boobs” was a new one. “No one’s ever going to love you” was his favorite line. I knew how his lips curled, almost in a smile, when he said it, and I could see it even when we were on the phone. When I lived with him in the trailer, he’d call me “stupid nut job” or “crazy bitch,” but now he said those only when he really wanted me to hurt.

I finished the shower in the Porn House in record time that day, thanks to my angry scrubbing. After I wiped the floor by hand and waited for it to dry, before returning the rugs in front of the toilet and the sink, I stood out in the hallway to catch my breath. On the wall to the right of the door hung studio portraits of the family, both looking in the same direction with identical sparkles in their eyes.

I walked into the doorway of the bedroom. In some ways, this was close to the life I wanted—a sensible house with a big yard. It didn’t necessarily have to sit on high-end property with views of the ocean, but it would be nice to be surrounded by a yard and a few towering trees. I stared at the bottle of lube on the nightstand by the alarm clock and couldn’t help but wonder how often they had sex with each other.

But maybe it was the life I thought I wanted, and the life I really dreamed of was next door at the Sad House. After Jamie and I fought that day, I cleaned the Sad House