My throat goes warm at the base, the spot that gives me away when I lie, and I’m glad Darina is taking her plate to the kitchen instead of watching my face. I join her later, when I finish eating. She studies me while she dries her hands.
“You said you wanted to work someday. You and me, earning our keep in some mysterious city.”
“I did say that.”
“Then we start today.” She takes the broom from the corner and holds it out to me. “Cleaning begins with the floor.”
I look at the broom, then at her.
“I know how to sweep.”
“Show me.”
I take the broom and push it across the stones the way I saw the maids at home do. Dust scatters ahead of the bristles, rises, and settles back down exactly where it was.
“You’re chasing it,” Darina says. “You have to gather it. Short strokes, toward you, into a pile.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“You’re fencing with it. Move your hands down the handle.”
I move my hands down the way she shows me, and the next stroke actually pulls the dust into a line instead of throwing it over my ankles.
“Oh.”
“There. Keep the pile ahead of you and work toward the door.”
I sweep. The pile grows, and I grow bold with it, then one long, proud stroke drives the whole pile into the sunlight. It rises in a cloud and drifts back down over everything I’ve already cleaned. I sneeze twice and stand there holding the broom while Darina laughs so hard she has to grip the table.
“Who decided brooms should work this way?” I demand.
“People who sweep,” she says. “Again.”
I sweep all of it again, and this time, the pile goes out the door where it belongs. She hands me a cloth next and points at the shelves. I learn that dusting means carrying the dust away in the cloth, not waving it into the air to land somewhere new. I sneeze about a dozen times more, while Darina folds her own cloth into quarters and wipes a shelf clean in three passes. Just to shame me.
The dishes are the worst of it. Darina fills the basin, and I decide that if a little soap cleans, more soap cleans better. I pour until the water disappears under the foam. Foam covers my arms to the elbows and spreads across the counter. A cup slips out of my grip twice, and on the third slip, I catch it against my chest, which soaks the front of my dress through.
“What are you even doing?” Darina asks, exasperated.
“The cup is slippery.”
“Because you used too much soap. Rinse, then stack.”
She steps toward me, slides on the wet stones, and catches herself on the counter. We burst out laughing.
I scrub a big platter, rinse it the way she taught me, and hold it up to the window.
“Look at this. You can see yourself in it.”
“You’d see yourself in anything. You’re vain.”
“I made it clean. With my own hands.”
“You made half the kitchen wet with your own hands.”
We mop the floor together, which is a lesson I didn’t ask for but get anyway. When it’s done, I stand in the doorway with my sleeves soaked and my hair coming loose. I look at the swept floor and the shining counter, and take stock of how I’m feeling. I should feel humiliated, right? Because I wasn’t raised to clean after myself, let alone after others. My arms ache, my back aches, but oddly enough, I’m not bothered by it. I’m pleased with myself. Because I did this.
The morning passed in a blur. We realize we’re hungry, which makes sense since it’s lunchtime already.
