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I am only thirty minutes away from her.
I am woken at dawn by my sister shaking me, shouting my name, Valeria.
I think I’m late for school.
But no. I’m late for work.
I am a maid. An underage, illegal maid.
Valeria doesn’t speak English, so all the thoughts I have to access are in Spanish. I barely know what’s happening. It takes me time to translate what’s going on.
There are four of us in the apartment. We put on our uniforms and a van comes to pick us up. I am the youngest, the least respected. My sister speaks to me, and I nod. I feel like my insides are twisting, and at first I think it’s just because of the shock of the situation. Then I realize they really are twisting. Cramps.
I find the words and tell my sister this. She understands, but I’m still going to have to work.
More women join us in the van. And another girl my age. Some people chat, but my sister and I don’t say a word to any of them.
The van starts dropping us off at people’s homes. Always at least two of us per house, sometimes three or four. I am paired with my sister.
I am in charge of bathrooms. I must scrub the toilets. Remove the hairs from the shower. Shine the mirrors until they gleam.
Each of us is in her own room. We do not talk. We don’t play music. We just work.
I am sweating in my uniform. The cramps will not go away. The medicine cabinets are full, but I know that I am here to clean, not to take. Nobody would miss two Midol, but it’s not worth the risk.
When I get to the master bathroom, the woman of the house is still in her bedroom, talking on the phone. She doesn’t think I can understand a word she says. What a shock it would be were Valeria to stomp right in and start talking to her about the laws of thermodynamics, or the life of Thomas Jefferson, in flawless English.
After two hours, we are done with the house. I think that will be it, but there are four more houses after that. By the end, I can barely move, and my sister, seeing this, does the bathrooms with me. We are a team, and that kinship gives the day the only memory worth keeping.
By the time we get home, I can barely speak. I force myself to have dinner, but it’s a silent meal. Then I head to bed, leaving room for my sister beside me.
Email is not an option.
Day 6012
I am an hour away from her.
I open Sallie Swain’s eyes and search her room for a computer. Before I’m fully awake, I am loading up my email.
A,
I’m sorry I didn’t get to write to you yesterday. I meant to, but then all these other things happened (none of them important, just time-consuming). Even though it was hard to see you, it was good to see you. I mean it. But taking a break and thinking things out makes sense.
How was your day? What did you do?
R
Does she really want to know, or is she just being polite? I feel as if she could be talking to anybody. And while I once thought what I wanted from her was this normal, everyday tone, now that I have it, the normalcy disappoints.
I write her back and tell her about the last two days. Then I tell her I have to go—I can’t skip school today, because Sallie Swain has a big cross-country meet, and it wouldn’t be fair for her to miss it.
I run. I am made for running. Because when you run, you could be anyone. You hone yourself into a body, nothing more or less than a body. You respond as a body, to the body. If you are racing to win, you have no thoughts but the body’s thoughts, no goals but the body’s goals. You obliterate yourself in the name of speed. You negate yourself in order to make it past the finish line.
Day 6013
I am an hour and a half away from her, and I am part of a happy family.
The Stevens family does not let Saturdays go to waste. No, Mrs. Stevens wakes Daniel up at nine o’clock on the dot and tells him to get ready for a drive. By the time he’s out of the shower, Mr. Stevens has loaded the car, and Daniel’s two sisters are raring to go.
