The Cleaner

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When she gets home from work, Sally finds her mother upstairs, crying. At first she pauses at the door, unsure whether to enter her parents’ bedroom. Her mother cried a lot after Martin died, and these days she’s crying a lot too.

“Sally?”

“Hi, Mom. Are you okay?” Sally asks, thinking that for her mom, okay ended a long time ago.

“I’m fine,” her mother says, offering a smile that she doesn’t quite get right, and of course Sally hasn’t seen one that has fitted right and she knows it’s because her parents blame her for what happened to Martin. “I don’t really know why I’m like this.”

When Sally puts an arm around her mother’s shoulders, she flinches at first, then relaxes. The room smells of incense and the warm air is slightly stale. She knows exactly why her mother gets like this, and her mother knows too. Martin’s birthday. She bought her dead brother a birthday card, filled it out, then buried it deep in her drawer beneath a pile of clothing. She isn’t sure if her parents do the same or similar things, and suspects it may not actually be that healthy if they do. Of course they never dare talk about it. To talk about it would allow their grief to take on more life, to continue to rise above them and push them down. In some ways she envies Joe. She wants to be as simple as him, not having to worry about the pain in the world, just moving along from A to B, keeping people happy, staying out of their way, making a life for herself that is good.

“It’s okay, Mom,” she says, and there’s that word again. “I think Dad’s looking forward to his birthday.”

Her mother nods, and they begin talking about how nice it’s going to be to go out for dinner. Her father’s birthday will be a challenge too. In the last year he has stepped outside the house for doctors’ appointments and graveyard visits and nothing else. Whether they make it to dinner on Thursday night is still something of a gamble.

Sally opens the window. The air outside has cooled off. The warm air from the bedroom starts to waft out as fresh stuff replaces it. She wishes her dad’s disease could be swapped just as easily. She would happily take it into her own body to relieve him of it if she could. It would be the least she could do after what happened to Martin.

“I’m sorry,” her mother says, looking up and releasing her grip on a damp handful of tissues. “I used to be stronger than this.” She starts rubbing the silver crucifix hanging at her neck between her thumb and forefinger.

“It will be okay, Mom,” Sally answers, staring at the crucifix coming in and out of view, the okay word hanging in the room in the thick air. “You’ll see.”

Of course her mother has said those same words many times since the day when Martin’s doctor gave them the news that led them to start thinking about where they wanted to bury their son. Strangely, it was Martin who suffered the least, because he didn’t understand he was dying. Even at the end he thought he was going to be getting better. Didn’t they all think that?

Yes. Life was always going to get better.

All they have to do is remember that. All they have to do is have faith.

Her mind slowly turns toward Joe. She wonders if he believes in God, and assumes that he does-he’s too good-natured not to. Still, she decides to find out, because God may be the one thing they have in common.