“Meesus Harreeson, house so clean! He was sick in bathroom, yes? I clean floor there, only a little. You like to change you clothes and I start laundry?” she asks, pointing at the piles on the floor. That’s the second time she’s mentioned me changing my clothes. I burst into tears.
“Meesus Harreeson? Is OK, is OK.” She pats me on the back while Rocky bashes his cup on his tray. She smells nice.
“Call me Gigi, please,” I say, completely at a loss for what to do next. This girl must think I’m crazy.
“Meesus Gigi, baby is hard work. I see you have big child too? Is boy also?” She points at Johnny’s drawings on the fridge. “Yes,” I say, “that’s Johnny,” and I point at his framed school photo from last year hanging on the kitchen wall. I remember buying the frame, putting the picture inside, hanging it. Last year. When Rocky was the size of an apple in my belly. I had a full-time job. I cooked dinner for Johnny every night and I put pictures in frames and I changed the sheets once a week. I ordered groceries online and kept a box of presents in the closet so that we never had to buy something overpriced at the last minute when Johnny was invited to a birthday party. I never forgot if he was invited to a party, not like I do now, showing up halfway through or almost at the end, saying we forgot the gift at home and we’ll bring it to school but then we never do.
Stefka’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Is lovely boys. Beautiful house. Do not so worry. You very lucky.”
She’s right, I am lucky. But I don’t want to be lucky. I want to take Johnny with me back to my apartment that was small enough to be cleaned in half an hour. Back where I knew how to do things, how to run my life, how to take care of a baby.
“I’m sorry, Stefka, I just met you like, five minutes ago, and look at me, I don’t know what’s happened to me.”
“I am mother too. Two boys. Is OK. Some days is blizzard in house and some days is nice breeze.” That must be a direct translation that hasn’t gone right, but I get what she’s saying. I probably don’t sound that different from her when I talk to British people.
I watch Rocky play with a Tupperware box and a wooden spoon that Stefka also instinctively knew where to find. I watch her unload the dishwasher, which I don’t think is part of the service, but I guess she can see I need all the help I can get.
I learn about her life. Her boys are five and seven.
“Where do they go to school?” I ask, expecting her to name somewhere local.
“Bulgaria. They live wis my parents.” She says it matter-of-factly, but I feel a stab in my heart. There’s a pause and I look at her to let her know I feel it.
“How often do you see them?” I ask.
“Once in summer for two weeks and two weeks in March.”
“Twice a year?” I stop myself before I say, That’s all? because that is all and I don’t want to emphasize it. She knows.
“Yes, is hard. But they is happy boys. Very handsome.” She smiles at me but as soon as she looks down to the dishes she’s stacking the smile is gone.
I watch her quietly. This woman is standing in my house, working in my house and somehow still breathing. Even though the pain of being so far away from her boys must be killing her. She sparkles when she shows me the pictures on her phone, two tough little guys with buzz cuts, dark eyes like hers, in matching Nike tracksuits. Another one of them in Ralph Lauren polo shirts, one in navy and one in orange, crisply ironed, both buttons done up to the neck, the older boy with his arm around his little brother, smiling a tight-lipped smile.
“They’re very cute. You dress them really nice,” I say, noticing the aging communist wallpaper in the background.
“I buy the English clothes for them. They always handsome. If you know where to buy, is good price and my parents don’t know what is style. I send package maybe every three month, for birsdays and Chreest-mus, of course. Chreest-mus is most expensive time to fly so I make package instead, beautiful clothes, toys, and I send card that this one is from Father Chreest-mus in UK.”
She works in the kitchen, now and then going over to Rocky, who gives her huge smiles. “Do you mind if I sit here? Am I bothering you?” I say. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to hang out with the cleaner when she’s working. I think the etiquette is to leave the house, or at least I overheard Fiona saying that’s what she always does.
“Of course, Meesus Gigi. Is hard be alone all day. Cleaning is this way too, work alone all day.”
She tells me about how her husband was working in the UK too but now he drives long-haul trucks around Europe so that’s why he’s not around and the kids have to stay with her parents. She talks while she works, telling me about how to get rid of the rest of Rocky’s cradle cap but I don’t really listen. I’m embarrassed at the state of my carpeting, the crust around the stovetop, ashamed that I can’t find the energy to ever play with Rocky or be affectionate or do anything other than meet his most basic needs. I never coo at him or make him smile like this total stranger has been able to do within an hour of meeting him.
Ashamed that what I want—really, if you really went down deep into what I really think and feel—is to get away from this beautiful house and my beautiful boys. Get away from them. But this
