Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,75
smoke from their joint wafting into my windows. I sat, too tired to read a book, with my day planner open in front of me instead, an attempt to memorize the twenty clients I rotated in weekly, biweekly, and monthly schedules. Most of the houses took me three hours to clean, and I usually had two or sometimes three houses a day.
Being a thirty-two-year-old single mother with several tattoos, I never felt like Mia and I fit into the conservative niche of our surroundings. Mia wore her monkey costume or tutus for days, her hair a disheveled mop of curls on her head. Walking through grocery stores, we were a sharp contrast to the well-put-together stay-at-home moms. Passing them in the cereal aisle, glancing at their large, sparkling wedding rings, staring at their toddlers dutifully in tow, their clothes unstained, their hair still smartly pulled into the ponytails and barrettes from that morning.
One woman, though, glanced in my direction, and her face turned to a warm smile. I recognized her as one of my mom’s old friends but didn’t remember her name. She asked how we were doing and where we lived. When I told her, she asked if Mia went to the day care behind Madison, the elementary school where I’d spent a few short months in second grade before my family moved to Alaska. I shook my head.
“I’m a little limited to where she can go,” I said, waiting for the confusion to show on her face before I explained. “The preschool would need to take a state grant I receive for childcare, and private schools don’t accept it.” I’d called local Montessori and other private schools, offering to barter the tuition for cleaning services, but none accepted. Mia would have greatly benefitted from the more enriching environment of a real preschool instead of a day care. I tried to make up for it by reading to her for at least thirty minutes every night.
“Grandma Judy’s day care is through the YMCA, and I’m pretty sure they would accept the state grant,” the woman said.
“Grandma Judy?” I asked, picking Mia up after her third attempt to hide under my skirt. The woman reached to gently touch Mia’s cheek, but Mia turned away to look over my shoulder and stiffened.
“She runs the day care. She really is like a grandma to the kids,” the woman told me. “My kids still visit her sometimes. The center is in one of those outbuildings behind the school, but Judy’s so great it’s almost like they’re going to Grandma’s house.”
A week later, Grandma Judy did welcome us with loving arms. On one of our first meetings, she pulled me into her office so we could sit and get to know each other. Maybe she caught me on a rough day, or at a time when I felt so helpless and overwhelmed, but as I sat in her office talking about our daily life, I began to cry. Judy handed me a tissue and said, “You’re a wonderful mother. I can tell. And I know a good mother when I see one.” I looked at her, sniffled, and realized that no one had ever told me that before. Those words were all it took for Grandma Judy to feel like family.
With Mia spending the day in a supportive environment, I felt better about being away from her to work. I took on as many houses as I possibly could, filling gaps in the company’s schedule with my own clients. I charged double the wages I made at Classic Clean. For a month that summer, the bills were paid. Mia and I were an inseparable twosome, singing to Sufjan Stevens’s “The Perpetual Self” or, as Mia called it, the “Uh-Oh Song.” Everything is lost! Uh-oh! We called it our happy morning song, making sure to listen to it before going to our respective places, and feeling pretty great about it. We had a routine. As fall started, I braced myself for adding a full load of online classes, for losing sleep. When school was in the mix, I drank a large cup of coffee in the evenings so I could finish homework. On the weekends, I studied. When classes began, I knew I would be exhausted, but in my mind, school was the most important work. It was the work that would get us places.
Pam and Lonnie estimated the time to clean a house based on their own speed. But they were middle-aged women and