This is it, Uma thought, taking in the stinking mess.My life. This is my fucking life.
She picked up the sponge, dark and shriveled, hard as rock, and ran it under water that took ages to heat. Breath coming fast, her heart fluttered with panic. All she wanted was to run.
I can do this. This is nothing. She’s an old woman. She can’t hurt me.This was about her future, about getting back some kind of life—a prospect that had seemed utterly impossible until she’d heard the interview that brought her here: a doctor offering free tattoo removal.
If anything, she needed to look at this job as a mental exercise. Physical activity to take her mind off everything else.Besides, fighting makes you stronger, right?
“You’re getting your sleeves wet,” Ms. Lloyd’s voice cut in, pointing out the obvious—and the one thing Uma had hoped she wouldn’t notice.
“I’m fine like this,” Uma responded, sounding silly and small, despite all efforts at strength. “I don’t mind getting wet.”
Uma attacked the dishes with energy, if not gusto. Crusted bits came off slowly under liberal applications of soap and elbow grease, and all the while, she endured the woman’s stare. Eventually, the dishes in the rack outnumbered the ones in the sink, and finally, the sink was empty.
“The menu du jour is soup and grilled cheese. Easy peasy. If you cook as good as you clean, we just might get along.”
Easy peasy was right. It took only a few minutes before she plopped two plates and bowls down on the tiny kitchen table and moved to sit across from her new employer, stomach growling in anticipation.
From somewhere close by, a bell rang. It was an old-fashioned rotary-phone sound that the woman ignored.
“Need me to get that?” Uma asked.
“Nope. Got a bathroom upstairs needs cleaning.” The woman’s words stopped her before Uma could pick up her spoon.
“You want me to clean before I eat?” Uma asked, poised above the seat, the smell of food teasing her taste buds with a rush of saliva.
A raised eyebrow was the woman’s only response, and Uma shut her eyes against the hunger. Work first, eat later. She could do this.
“Fine,” she said, straightening. Strong. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Upstairs hall. Second door on the left. Supplies are down here. Your room’s the last one on the right. Don’t dawdle, and don’t open the other doors. It’s private.” As if Uma cared what the woman kept in her house.
She squatted in front of the cupboard and rummaged around, the smells of bleach and melted Velveeta mingling in her empty stomach to make her gag. If the state of the kitchen was any indication, conditions upstairs were likely dire.
She stood, arms filled with containers of products so viscous they’d need to be chipped out.
Ms. Lloyd sniffed, her voice following Uma out. “It’s not the worst grilled cheese I ever ate.”
Limbs heavy, Uma stomped slowly up the stairs, fairly certain that the comment was her new boss’s idea of a compliment.
* * *
An hour later, Uma stopped in the hallway on her way downstairs. There was nothing personal in this house, nothing human. The walls were decorated with crying-clown prints and bird lithographs. All signs pointed to Ms. Lloyd being a lonely, lonely woman.
She looked at each frame she passed until… Oh. Uma set down the bucket of cleaning supplies and leaned in to peer at the picture. A wedding photograph, man and woman both smiling happily. It looked informal, like a town hall affair, maybe taken sometime in the seventies. The woman was a thinner, happier, pretty Ms. Lloyd. There was something about the photo—the hope, the excitement, the infinite possibilities alive in their eyes. Uma swallowed the lump in her throat and picked up the bucket, walking away.
What kind of life was this? Meals, TV, bed…the same rituals day in and day out.
God, what if she became this woman further down the road? She might not even take that long to sink to such lonely ruination. Uma and Ms. Lloyd—bonded in loneliness. The thought repulsed her but also brought with it the strangest desire to better understand her boss.
Downstairs, the woman snored on her chintz sofa in front ofWheel of Fortune. Uma’s eyes skimmed over the ugliest doily arm protectors she’d ever seen to where gnarled hands lay clasped in her lap. Out of nowhere came the weirdest urge to take one of those hands in hers. Would her fingers be cold, dry talons, or would they be warm and soft from sleep?
No. Not Uma’s problem. Empathy was a luxury she could ill afford. Maybe someday, but her stock was currently depleted.
She tiptoed into the kitchen and wolfed down her meal. Cold.
Once she’d eaten and finished the dishes, she looked around. The rooster clock on the wall told her it was just after 7:00 p.m. The sun had set, and the air was finally cool. The prospect of the long, dark, lonely night stretching ahead had Uma searching the house for something else to occupy her time.
Her eyes fell on the cupboard beneath the sink.Yuck.Might as well start there.
