Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,76

not in the greatest shape, and I’d become a ninja. After several months of working full-time, I had to find a belt for my pants. I couldn’t keep weight on if I tried. If I finished a house faster than the allotted time, they’d tell me to slow down. If clients suddenly had bills that were less than the original quote, due to my shorter times, they’d come to expect that same amount. I had to keep with the expected times out of fairness to whoever eventually replaced me.

For some houses, that meant that I had time to stop and thumb through books sitting on nightstands or kitchen counters. I began looking through the rapidly growing stashes of alcohol, hidden chocolate, unopened bags from the mall that remained untouched for months. I became intrigued by understanding how people coped. I snooped because I was bored, and, in a way, it became my own coping mechanism.

I started to love the houses that didn’t echo in vacancy. I appreciated my Friday mornings with Henry. I never snooped in houses where I wasn’t invisible, where my name was “Stephanie” instead of “cleaning service” or even “MAID” on their calendar. And I never looked through the stuff of clients I met on my own outside of Classic Clean. We had a mutual respect for each other, and over time, some became friends. The snooping was like uncovering clues, finding evidence of the secret lives of people who seemed like they had it all. Despite being wealthy and having the two-story houses of our American dreams—the marbled-sink bathrooms, the offices with bay windows looking out at the water—their lives still lacked something. I became fascinated by the things hidden in dark corners and the self-help books for hope. Maybe they just had longer hallways and bigger closets to hide the things that scared them.

* * *

Lori’s House was built just for her and the people who knew how to care for her Huntington’s disease. She spent most of the day in a cushioned chair directly in front of the TV. She could hardly speak, but her caregivers seemed to be able to understand her. Her limbs had minds of their own; her legs occasionally shot straight up in the air. Lori’s caregivers fed her, cleaned her, and helped her to the bathroom. While I dusted the TV and the shelves filled with photographs, Lori watched me with dark, alert eyes.

Every other Tuesday, I spent six hours in her house. It was large and had been designed by her husband, who had a loft apartment upstairs where he slept on most weekends. Lori had a rotating staff of caregivers, but Beth always seemed to be there on the days I was. She offered me coffee, and while I rarely accepted, we would often chat while I cleaned.

On the morning before my second or third time cleaning Lori’s House, the DVD player Travis bought Mia for her birthday broke. Mia started crying and kicking it from her car seat. We’d come to heavily rely on that thing during our long hours in the car. I’d listened to Elmo sing about ears and noses easily a hundred times. When I got to Lori’s House that morning, I was a ball of nerves and rushed to get all my supplies into the master bathroom, a room bigger than my entire apartment.

I had to hide from Beth in that room while I regained some composure. It was the only space on the main floor with a door. The bathtub had windows all around it, and I had to climb into the tub to get the sills clean. You can’t even replace it started repeating in my head, strong and fierce. My body tucked into itself, and I sat, gasping, holding my knees, and rocking. The DVD player didn’t even cost a hundred bucks, but I couldn’t afford to buy a new one. That thought triggered a spiral of all the other things I could not provide for my daughter: a decent house, a family, her own room, cupboards full of food. I hugged my knees tighter, not bothering to wipe the tears from my face, and started whispering my mantra to interrupt the negative swirl of fear that encased me. To comfort, to stop the downward spiral from going to a place of true panic.

I love you. I’m here for you. I love you. I’m here for you.

When I was homeless, a therapist had first introduced me to the idea