clean

by Julia Gilmour

1.

My mother wakes us at dawn, just as the sun streams through cloudy windows. She hands me an old, ratted rag and a bottle of Windex, and I stand at the back window in my pajamas, trying to clean without leaving streaks. That’s not how you do it! she screams, arm muscles flexed while she demonstrates the proper way to wipe a window. At first glance, it appears spotless, but upon closer inspection, towel fibers cling to glass.

On the counter sits hand sanitizer in a pump bottle, Clorox wipes in a tube. I kneel at the kitchen floor, a rag in one hand, a bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles in the other. Foam layers on tile like ash. Shit, I say when it gets in my eyes and burns.

In the shower, cheap bar soap from the corner store dries out my skin. It’s chalky on the tongue when I scrub out my mouth.

My girls never learned to clean, my mother says to anyone who enters her dusty home.

2.

My mother’s sweater is increasingly too big for her thin frame, and it’s wrinkled. Her hair knots in the back when she stands from the couch and offers the guests iced tea, or cookies, or a plate of kiwi. My girls never learned to clean, she repeats to her guests. And I know it’s true because I wash my body and do laundry and try, but it’s not like the other women. The ones whose outfits are always pressed, nails done, hair slick, heels shiny. My department store socks protrude from the top of my boot, and my shirt hangs down past my hips, and it’s wrinkled, but I don’t want to risk burning the fabric with a hot iron. And now, after sitting on my parent’s sofa, I’m covered in dog hair. Under my eyes is yesterday’s mascara that wouldn’t come off no matter how hard I scrubbed with the cheap bar of soap, no matter how red the whites of my eyes became, or how dry the skin around my mouth.

My childhood home is orderly, but dirty. She thinks I don’t notice the baseboards, but it’d be hard not to: dust, grime, hair, dead flies. I don’t know if my mother cares anymore because she’s yelling less frequently. She only hints at it in front of others, like our husbands or in-laws: My girls never learned to clean. Only now that I’m about to become a mother myself do I realize she’s blaming the victim, like it was our learning, not her teaching, that created this lack in us.

The guest bathroom floor is caked in some tar-like residue, so I scrub and scrub and scrub and it doesn’t come up. It’s been too dirty for too long; nothing will come up. Soiled beyond repair. I see my father at the window, wiping, wiping, wiping.

3.

We take the kids swimming, and afterward, I shower in the upstairs bathroom. There’s a sliver of soap on the ledge, like a hang nail. The washcloth smells like mildew. Mushrooms grow between the shower and the pink shag rug. In the sink, bugs circle the drain.

I try to move forward, but the carpet crumbles against my bare feet. The towel unravels at my bust. I pull the fabric with my fingers, trying to cover up and it disintegrates in my hands. Fibers cling to me.

My mother is there, handing me a new towel. It’s stale.

Where are all your clean towels? I ask her.

This house is falling apart, she says. We should just tear it all down and start over.

You have no soap.

She smells bad and her teeth are yellowing in all the spaces between. Boils, rashes, scratches, and age spots mark her skin. She no longer yells, ever. She has nothing to yell about. I dig around under the sink. Expired cleaning products, the same, I think, from my childhood. I pour them all together in one big mystery bucket and douse the floor, the carpet, the windows, the mirrors, the furniture. I usher my family outside. I light a match. Together, we watch it burn.

Photo of Julia Gilmour

BIO: Julia Gilmour lives in the desert. She enjoys long hikes through the sagebrush, and tiny stories. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Wigleaf, Six Sentences, Flash Fiction Magazine and others. You can find her work on Instagram: @juliagilmour.