Three Houses

In the middle of my morning pep talk to myself on the drive to work, I hit a deer with my car. Or maybe the deer hit my car with its body. I just needed to make it through the day and already things were off to a rotten start.

I pulled to the side of the highway to survey the damage. The front of my beat up Toyota was even more beat up than usual, but still drivable. The deer however, was a goner. Well, almost a goner. It twitched as its intestines spilled out of it like tubes of red spaghetti. Steam rose off its body in the sun dappled fog. I looked around, searching for an adult more adult than me to do something for the deer. But the cars on the highway just kept whizzing by. I wanted to end the deer’s suffering, but I didn’t know how.

Then I saw a rustle in the bushes next to the road. A fawn watched its mother in her death throes, her blood staining the white line on the side of the road.

“Get out of here!” I yelled. I hoped my voice carried over the roar of the highway. Please not a second casualty on the morning commute. It bolted into the forest and out of sight.

I left the doe to die alone.

With some tender encouragement, I got my car to the meeting spot in front of the strip mall where Ali was waiting for me. I’d deal with the damage to my front bumper later.

“What happened?” Ali said, her mouth full of Taco Bell breakfast as I slid into the backseat of her car.

“I hit a deer on my drive in,” I said. I clocked into work on the app and looked at our schedule for the day. Three houses. Not bad.

Kimberly was already passed out in the passenger seat, the hood of her jacket pulled as far over her face as possible. I get it that being a house cleaner isn’t glamorous work, but I managed to come to work every day sober. Ali gave me a knowing look in the rearview mirror, something that indicated Kimberly was going to be fired soon. Our boss was nice, but she wasn’t that nice.

We sometimes gave informal nicknames to our regulars’ houses. Our first house of the day was “The House of the Many Bathrooms,” a modest home that had five bathrooms, all of which were somehow used by the empty-nester couple that lived there. It was one of those houses purchased three decades ago for an absolute steal that would be worth a small fortune today. The master bathroom shower was hideous. Ali assigned the downstairs wing of the house to me, which mercifully only contained two bathrooms.

The homeowners’ adult children seemed to visit them often. Often enough to need the bathrooms cleaned at least. From the state of the adult son’s bedroom, it appeared he’d had a guest with him on this most recent visit. You notice these small things when you’re elbow deep in someone else’s business. The bathroom trash contained a single small treasure: One used condom. I peeled the sticky prophylactic off the bottom of the plastic trash can and threw it into my big trash bag.

Did the mother deer regret having a baby as she stared at her soon-to-be orphaned fawn as she died? Or did she find hope that she’d live on through her child? Did she even have a choice in her pregnancy? Are deer capable of consent?

I’m certain deer aren’t capable of that kind of introspection. However, it struck me that she had been in her house when she died. Her forest was there long before humans put the highway in. I trespassed and killed her.

This was all too much for a Tuesday morning.

I peeled off my rubber gloves and donned a new pair before finishing my tasks at The House of the Many Bathrooms. The scents of Fabuloso and the generic brand window cleaner soaked into my skin, despite the gloves. I was certain I’d smell like this forever, even after I left this job.

My favorite house was next on the docket. Ordinarily I hated cleaning gigantic houses, but this one was an exception. The four-story, well-preserved Victorian era mansion, with stained glass fixtures and crystal door knobs was something out of a storybook. I called this house by its owner’s name. She shared her first name with someone I loved very much, which made the house all the more magical.

We lugged the two heavy supplies bags, two vacuums, the broom, mop, and bucket up to the top floor where the children’s bedrooms were. Ali granted me a reprieve from cleaning bathrooms since I did three in the previous house. Instead I dusted the boys’ rooms and made their beds. Kimberly could deal with the outrageous mess the five young boys dished out to their shared bathroom. You wouldn’t believe the places they managed to smear toothpaste.

The eldest boy had his own room, which was large and had its own fireplace. His belongings were sparse for a middle-schooler, but I didn’t complain. Less to dust. Next came the three middle boys’ giant shared room. It reminded me of a Hogwarts dormitory, their three identical beds pressed up against the three windows on opposite walls. This room was littered with toys, as you might expect for kids aged six to ten years old. I took great care to organize every single stuffed animal on their beds, making sure all of their eyes could be seen when the boys got home from school.

I rescued many stuffies and blankets from the abyss between the beds and the walls. I often wondered if they returned to their room and exclaimed, “Mr. Elephant, I’ve been missing you!” Or did they even notice when a toy disappeared into the darkness beneath their beds?

The toddler’s room was my favorite. I wiped down the changing table, dusted the bookshelves, and picked up the toys scattered around. But no matter how hard I tried, I always shed a little tear when I folded the blankets in the crib. And when I made the mother’s bed, setting her pregnancy pillow up just right for her. Five children and pregnant with a sixth, living in this lavish Victorian mansion.

It would have been more glamorous had I not also seen her dirty underwear discarded by her bedside and the mounds of dog shit on the back patio. The house cleaners see it all. Even the most put-together and perfect women are still human after all. However, it didn’t stop me from wanting to be her.

The four months my ex-husband and I tried for a baby were unsuccessful. And now that journey is over, due to the ex-husband of it all. Asshole. Folding the blankets in the crib and arranging her pregnancy pillow were the closest I might ever get to that life. It’s true that we see all of the mess and literal dirty laundry, but we sincerely aren’t judging. Our lives are messy too. Ugly even. We spend more time fantasizing about taking your place than we do looking down on you for the state of your home. I promise.

Ali sent me down into the basement, which was nothing but a massive indoor pool and adjoining bathroom. Ali said the heat and humidity made her dizzy. I secretly loved cleaning the pool bathroom. Like a reptile, I enjoyed the warmth. It was also dark and quiet. And if I wanted to have a little cry while cleaning the shower, I could. The floor tiles were original to the house, cream and cerulean with little gold and black beetles pressed in the clay. Why beetles? The wrought-iron spiral staircase that led down there was also pretty neat. The house exploded with magic and whimsy. And children. Lots and lots of children.

“See you in two weeks,” I mumbled to the house as we left.

The last house did not have a name. This one belonged to another pair of empty-nesters, though these two were retired and had grandchildren. We only had to clean the basement of their house when the kids and grandkids came to visit. Of course today was one of the rare occasions we had to go down there. After cleaning Charlotte’s house, I was pretty tired. One more, I told myself. Almost done.

Fortunately this house was very clean, despite the houseguests. We did the basement last. After I scrubbed my sixth toilet of the day, I went to empty the bathroom trash only to discover yet another treasure. A pregnancy test. I was too curious and nosy to stop myself from flipping it over with a gloved hand to see the result. Positive.

My mind bubbled over with questions. Was it a planned pregnancy? Was the couple happy to get this result? Or was this an unexpected wrench in their plans? Who takes a pregnancy test while on a weekend stay at their parents’ house? Perhaps the same kind of person who leaves a used condom. Or the kind of people who know mom and dad don’t empty the trash, the house cleaners do.

“Pregnancy test,” I mumbled to Ali as she walked by. “Positive.”

She shuddered and made a face. She did not share my secret longing for motherhood. I shrugged and added the pee stick to the large trash bag destined for the bin next to the driveway. That may have been the first and last time I would ever hold a positive pregnancy test.

I wondered when that mother deer first learned she was pregnant. Did the baby kick and startle her? Or did she intuitively know from the very start? Damn that deer. Why did she have to run out in front of my car and get herself killed like that! She left behind that little fawn. And for what? To cross a four-lane highway during the morning rush hour? What could have possibly been so important that she just had to get to the forest on the other side?

Deer are stupid. Even in their own homes they are stupid.

Ali drove Kimberly and me back to the meetup spot where my battered car waited patiently. She parked and handed out the cash tips we’d received that day. $60 each, on top of our hourly wage. Untaxed of course, since it was cash. (Shh, you’ll keep my secret, right?) Ali sighed and said she’d need to dump all of it into filling her car up with gas again. Kimberly, now no longer stoned, said that she’d be able to feed her kids dinner tonight. She gathered up her things and sauntered off to the Jack in the Box before catching her bus home.

“Nichole is going to fire her on Friday,” Ali said, shaking her head as we watched Kimberly cross the parking lot.

“Oh my god, her kids,” I whispered. “How will she take care of them without a job?”

Ali shrugged. “It’s sad,” she said. “But Nichole gave Kimberly many chances to clean up her act.”

I nodded in agreement. Kimberly cussed our boss out on the phone the other day. There was only so much any of us could do.

I heaved my aching bones out of Ali’s car and piled them into mine. I waited for Ali to leave before I rested my head on the steering wheel and exhaled. I survived my day. But I couldn’t make myself start the car and drive home. Ravenous and requiring a shower, I wanted to be home. But I couldn’t go home.

The dead deer’s glossy eyes haunted me. I’d have to look at her again when I drove past. But more than that, I feared what might be lying on the pavement next to her. What if the fawn came back? What if it refused to leave its mother’s side? What if the single casualty had become two?

My stomach rumbled in agony, demanding nourishment after the physical labor I’d performed all day. You’re still alive, damn it, it seemed to say. Don’t wallow over what is gone. The work clothes I’d acquired three months ago fit looser now, an unwelcome change. While most women would have envied my flat belly, I hated it. The emptiness taunted me. A vessel never to be filled. I heard the invisible ticking clock counting down until my time was up. Not long left, it said.

Not that I could even afford to have a baby now. It was my ex-husband’s six-figure tech industry salary that granted us access to that life. It was clear where I had landed without him. I was not about to become like Kimberly.

Eventually I got my shit together and started my car and headed home. Even if I ignored the hunger, the desire for a shower would make me face whatever ugliness lingered on the highway shoulder. The scents of the cleaning solution and rubber gloves may have soaked into my skin, but it didn’t stop me from trying to scrub it out.

Dread filled my chest as I got closer and closer to the scene of the morning commute. Dusk settled across the sky, but I could still make out the faint shadow of a deer-sized lump on the side of the road. I scanned the nearby area, praying I wouldn’t see a dead baby.

The only body left to rot in the cold was the mother.

“For fuck’s sake,” I said aloud after I passed the scene. “It’s just a goddamn deer.”

It’s just a deer, right?

And the fawn is just a fawn.

And my ex-husband is still a jerk.

And my belly is still empty.

And Kimberly is getting fired.

And Charlotte is having her sixth child.

And the clock keeps ticking.

And ticking.