“To a clean conscience. To a good, clean life.”
It would take years for me to truly understand this, but it strikes me now how right she was.
I take out the broom and dustpan, the mop and bucket from the cleaning cupboard in the kitchen. I begin with a good sweep, starting at the far corner of my bedroom. There isn’t much floor space, since my queen bed takes up most of the room, but dirt has a way of hiding under things, of lodging in the cracks. I lift the bed skirts and do a sweep under the bed, pushing any clinging dust forward and out of the room. Gran’s landscape paintings of the English countryside hang on every wall, and every one of them reminds me of her.
What a day it has been, what a day indeed. It is one I’d rather forget than remember, and yet it doesn’t work that way. We bury the bad memories deep, but they don’t go away. They’re with us all the time.
I carry on sweeping through the hallway. I make my way to the bathroom, with its old, cracked black-and-white tiles that nevertheless shine brightly when polished, something I do twice weekly. I sweep up a few of my own stray hairs from the floor, then back out of the bathroom.
Now, I’m right in front of Gran’s bedroom door. It’s closed. I pause. I won’t go in there. I haven’t crossed that threshold in months. And it won’t be today.
I sweep the parquet from the farthest end of the living room, around Gran’s curio cabinet, under the sofa, right through the galley kitchen and back to the front door. I’ve left minute piles of detritus behind me—one outside my bedroom door, another outside the bathroom, one here by the front entrance, and one in the kitchen. I sweep each pile into the dustpan and then have a look at the contents. Quite a clean week, overall—a few crumpet crumbs, some dust and clothing fibers, some strands of my own dark hair. Nothing left of Gran that I can see. Nothing at all.
I whisk the dirt into the trash bin in the kitchen. Then I fill the bucket with warm water and add some of that nice Mr. Clean, Moonlight Breeze scent （Gran’s favorite）， into the bucket. I carry the bucket and mop into my bedroom and start at the far corner. I’m careful not to splash any water onto my bed skirts and definitely not on the lone-star quilt that Gran made for me years ago, faded now from use and wear, but nonetheless a treasure.
I complete my circuit, ending again at the entrance, where I encounter a very stubborn black scuff mark at the door. I must have done that with my black-soled work shoes. I scrub, scrub, scrub. “Out, damn spot,” I say aloud, and eventually it fades before my eyes, revealing the gleam of parquet beneath.
It’s funny the way memories bubble up whenever I clean. I do wonder if that’s the same for everyone—for everyone who cleans, that is. And though I’ve had a rather eventful day, it’s not today that I’m thinking about, not Mr. Black and all of that wretched business, but a day long ago when I was about eleven years old. I was asking Gran about my mother, as I did from time to time—What kind of person was she? Where had she gone and why? I knew she’d run off with my father, a man Gran described as a “bad egg” and “a fly-by-night.”
“What was he during the day?” I asked.
She laughed.
“Are you laughing with me or at me?”
“With, my dear girl! Always with.”
She went on to say it was no surprise that my mother got caught up with a fly-by-night, because Gran had made mistakes, too, when she was young. That’s how she got my mother in the first place.
It was all so confusing at the time. I had no idea what to think about any of it. It makes more sense now. The older I get, the more I understand. And the more I understand, the more questions I have for her—questions she can no longer answer.
“Will she ever come back to us? My mother?” I asked back then.
A long sigh. “It won’t be easy. She has to escape him. And she has to want to get away.”
She didn’t, though. My mother never returned. But that’s okay with me. There’s no point mourning someone you never knew. It’s hard enough mourning someone you did know, someone you’ll never see again, someone you miss dreadfully.
My gran worked hard and cared for me well. She taught me things. She hugged me and fussed over me and made life worth living. My gran was also a maid, but a domestic one. She worked for a well-to-do family, the Coldwells. She could walk to their mansion from our apartment in half an hour. They complimented her work, but whatever she did for them, it was never enough.
“Can you clean up after our soirée on Saturday night?”