Maid - Stephanie Land Page 0,77

of mantras; only then it’d been phrases like “nobody dies from a panic attack,” or to envision my daughter swinging and match my breath with the speed of the pendulum. None of that worked. What my mind needed to know was that someone was there to make it all better. That summer, through gritted teeth, I’d decided that person was me, not a man or a family, and it would only ever be me. I had to stop hoping for someone to come along and love me. I had to do it myself, ducking my head and barreling through anything life brought.

After that morning of the broken DVD player, whenever I cleaned Lori’s tub, I did it over a shadow in the shape of myself from that morning, rocking and whispering, waiting for breath to come easier. I stood there sometimes, looking down on that ghost, that former version of myself, with compassion, like an older, wiser self, offering a caring gesture of comfort. I learned to look to that wiser self in moments of panic, too. The one, ten years from now, who would have made it through hell. I just had to keep the faith that she existed.

One Tuesday I called Pam to ask if I could split Lori’s House into two days or maybe get by with a three-hour clean just this once. Mia had been sick for several days with a sinus infection and had developed pinkeye on top of that. I couldn’t take her to day care, and I couldn’t afford to miss any more work. I called Jamie that morning to ask him to take her for a few days. I planned to take her to Urgent Care first thing and then drive to our meeting point at the ferry dock, only to turn back around to Lori’s House, where I could work late to finish the job.

Mia and I shared my twin bed a lot, which wasn’t ideal even when she was well. She thrashed in her sleep, kicking me, flailing her arms, throwing her fist into my eye. For the past several days, her plugged nose, fever, and general discomfort meant that she woke up throughout the night crying and wanting comfort. I hadn’t slept well in days.

Since becoming a single parent I’d referred to the phases of our progress as “a whole new level of exhaustion.” Most of my days seemed to drift, like a boat with a broken motor, through a thick fog. At times, the thickness would lift a little; I could see, I could think, I could joke and smile and laugh and feel like myself for an afternoon. There hadn’t been many moments like that since we’d been on our own. Since we’d been homeless. Since I fought daily not to have to return to a shelter. Yet I mentally prepared myself for another level—the addition of schoolwork on top of the schedule I’d fought to fill with work. I rarely questioned the how of things. I just knew what needed to be done. And I did it.

I called my boss and Jamie to update them on my progress from the parking lot outside the pharmacy. I told my boss I should be at Lori’s in a few hours—it took just over an hour one way to meet Jamie to hand Mia off. His voice came through at high levels of irritation on the phone, but I ignored it. He didn’t like giving her medicine, didn’t trust doctors, and blamed day care for making her so sick all the time. I didn’t have time to engage with him that morning, which upset him more. I cut him off, told him I’d drop her off with her medications and all the instructions, and to follow everything they said.

“Those antibiotics are only making her sicker,” he said in a snide tone. He said it every time she had to take them for a sinus or ear infection. I didn’t like giving her antibiotics, either, knowing they masked the real problem—that our lifestyle, our living space, was making her sick. But another choice didn’t seem to be available.

“Just do it, Jamie,” I said. I hung up and rolled my eyes. Then I turned to look at Mia in her car seat behind me. She wore a red t-shirt with a cartoon horse in a cowboy hat on the front and a pair of black stretch pants with a hole in the knee. In her lap was a new bath toy