Dirty Secret (34 page)

“I'm not.”

“Then what's this?” I point to one of the tags.

“Hey,” David says, “there are four more of those, right here.” He's holding a stack of muffin tins from the metal shelves. Two are still in boxes.

“Really?” my mom asks. She goes over to take a look.

“Oh, I see,” my mother says, studying the items in David's arms. “One is for little muffins, no,
two
are for little muffins, the really tiny ones that are so cute, and see, this one is stainless steel and here, this one is ceramic.” She turns to me, holding up a grimy box with a black-and-white illustration on the side. “Isn't that fantastic, Jessie? A ceramic muffin pan!”

“Do you make muffins, Helen?” David asks. If I'd asked the question I wouldn't have been able to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but David sounds sincerely curious, and maybe he is. My mom does have manic baking marathons occasionally, like when she was making bread after my dad's heart attack.

“I haven't yet,” she says. “But I'm going to. I'm going to
very
soon!”

I'm tempted to try to convince her to let me get rid of three of the muffin tins, but David's stacking everything neatly back on the shelf and they don't take up too much room. I'll save the conniving/begging/bribing for something bigger.

I've filled the garbage bag with stuff from the table and milk cartons and coffee cans from the floor, so I tie it up and carry it to the back door. “I'll be right back,” I say, and duck outside. I don't have a coat on so I run across her snowy backyard as fast as I can to the trash can in the alley.

When I come back in, David's standing by the back door.

“Magpie,” he whispers. “What are you doing? Remember,
you decided that cleaning isn't your responsibility anymore.
Remember
?”

“It's okay. I mean, we're already here. Do you mind if we stay and clean just a little?”

“I guess not,” he says. “But only if it's not going to upset you too much.”

“I'm fine,” I say. “Really. Completely fine.”

Actually I'm better than fine.

I feel absolutely exhilarated. Alive.

“Okay, if you're sure,” he says as we walk back into the kitchen.

I hear the staticky sounds of a radio and peek into the living room where my mom is trying to find a station on her clunky '80s-era stereo. The living room is cluttered to a medium-pack rat degree, but the kitchen is clearly the epicenter of the hoarding and where I need to focus my attention. At least for today.

“What should I do?” David asks.

“Maybe clear off the counter? Throw out the empty boxes and anything else that should be tossed?”

“Sure,” he says.

“Thanks, that'll be really helpful because I'm going to scour that table as soon as I find some sponges, and if you can get the counter cleared off, I'll be able to get that scrubbed down, too. After that I'll sweep and mop. And then I can clean the stove and refrigerator—”

“Don't forget, we need to get your dad's car back to him.”

“Right. Do you know what time it is?” There are no clocks in my mom's kitchen.

David gets his phone out of his jeans pocket—awkwardly because of the rubber gloves—and tells me.

“That gives us an hour,” I say, and just as I'm about to add,
not nearly enough time,
David says, “That's plenty of time.”

Shoved at the back of the cabinet under the kitchen sink is a cellophane-wrapped four-pack of sponges. Actually there are a lot of cleaning supplies under here: bleach, dish soap, scouring pads, glass cleaner, and shiny green cylinders of Comet. I grab the sponges and one of the Comets and get to work on the table's stickiest spots.

Suddenly the radio comes on, the local NPR station, loud. Disturbingly loud. My mother appears in the doorway. “I just love this Ira Glass. Don't you just love Ira Glass, Dave?”

“Sure, Helen,” he says, as he tosses the carcasses of cereal boxes into a garbage bag.

“Do you like him, too, Jessie?”

“Mom, don't you think that's a little loud?”

I have to scream in order for her to hear me. She disappears into the living room. I'm instantly brought back to a day in my late teens when I was riding in my mom's car with her. She'd recently decided that she liked heavy metal music and insisted on blasting it as we drove; for a few minutes I felt like I had a cool mom, one of those moms who was more like a friend. One of those moms you could tell anything to. But then the song changed to something really grating and she refused to turn it down.

This time she's more amenable. She turns down the radio and comes back into the kitchen.

“I wish you and Dave could meet my friend Tina,” she says. “She's just incredible. Do you think after this we could go over to Tina's house? Just for a few minutes? She only lives about ten minutes away.”

“We need to get my dad's car back to him. He has to pick up some real estate signs for Sandy.”

On the other hand, maybe I could call my dad and ask him if it's okay for us to be late with the car, so we can clean longer.
Or maybe David could drive the car back and return in a cab. Or it might be better for David to drive the car back, then have my dad drop him off here, and then when we're finished cleaning David and I could take a cab to my dad and Sandy's—

“Was there a fire here, Helen?” David says, and when I look over, he's pointing to the decades-old microwave on the counter.

“What?” I say, walking closer to it. The yellow Formica underneath the microwave is brown—I thought it was dirt or coffee grounds, but now I can see that the counter has been scorched.

“Just a little one,” she says.

“Are you serious?” I ask. “You had a fire?”

We've got a packer house here. Send more guys.

“It was nothing. It didn't get farther than the counter.”

I pull out one of the kitchen chairs and collapse onto it. I feel hollowed out, all my energy sapped. “Do you know how scary that is, Mom?”

“Helen, is it okay if I use your bathroom?” David asks, already walking out of the room. He probably senses an argument and wants to flee the scene before it happens.

“Of course, Dave. You know where it is.”

“This is serious,” I say to my mom. She's leaning against the refrigerator with her arms crossed over her chest. “If you had a fire here, no one could get in. You could die. It's happened before, in houses like this.”

“But look,” she says, pointing to the hall. “They could get in. The hallway is clear.”

“It is now. But what about six months from now, or a year, or two years? How long will it stay clear?”

“Forever,” she says.

I can't let my mom die in this house.

“We need to get you some help. Would you please consider seeing a therapist who specializes in hoarding?”

“Oh, no. I don't need that.”

“What about hiring a cleaning person? I could do the initial cleanout and then we'll have someone come in once or twice a week for maintenance.”

I've said these things before, but I'm desperate.

“A cleaning person isn't necessary,” my mom says. “And it's too expensive.”

David comes back into the kitchen, wiping his hands on his jeans. He's no longer wearing his gloves, but I guess it doesn't really matter. He's clearly trying to stay out of our conversation because he walks right past us to the counter, where he continues picking up and shaking cereal boxes and cracker containers, trying to figure out which ones are full and which are empty.

“Besides,” my mom says, “you don't need to worry about fires. I've got smoke detectors. See?” She points to a spot above the door to the basement, where a tiny red dot is blinking on a white plastic device. Okay. That makes me feel a little better. “And there's another one,” she says and points above the refrigerator, where high up on the wall there is indeed another smoke detector.

“What about in the other rooms?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah, I've got one in every room. I've even got one on the front porch. I put them up about six months ago.”

That's why I didn't see them last time I was here. They're a huge relief. For once my mother's partial paranoia is a good thing.

“Listen, Jessie,” my mom says, lifting a frying pan from the stack of dirty ones on the stove. “I want to show you this new cleaning method I've got.” She carries the pan over to the sink, where she fills it with water and dish soap. Then she walks
back to the stove with it—carefully so none of the soapy water spills—sets it down on one of the burners, and turns on the flame. “See, what I do is boil the soap in the pan. That way I know it's clean.”

“Oh, Mom.”

DAVID AND
I get as much done as we can before my dad needs his car back, and when we leave and the fresh cold air hits my face, the embarrassment and anger at myself sets in. I failed in my vow not to enter her house.

Worse, I failed at my vow not to clean.

I thought I was better, I thought I'd successfully separated myself from my mother's compulsive hoarding, but I hadn't. My obsession with cleaning her house hadn't ended. I should have known it was too easy. The first chance I had, I caved—all it took was walking through the front door. I have no control when it comes to my mother's house. None.

But then again, maybe it's not such a bad thing. Maybe I can clean a few hours each time I visit. A semiannual maintenance. After all, who could it hurt?

MY FRIEND JULIA AND I ARE FANATICAL ABOUT THE HBO show
The Wire
—we can talk about it for most of a cocktail or dinner party, much to the annoyance of those around us—and for months we've been waiting for the season premiere in the first week of January. I've invited her over to watch it and for the occasion, I buy a nice bottle of red wine and make a special trip to Sahadi's for hummus, baba ganoush, olives, and little spinach pies.

There's just one small problem. A few days after David and I were in my mom's house cleaning, I started itching again, all over. But I know it's a coincidence. It has to be. I don't want to say anything to David because it will just freak him out unnecessarily. The air was so dry at my dad and Sandy's, and it is in our apartment, too. That must be it.

When my friend comes over she's wearing ballet flats without
socks, even though it's winter. Although it's impossible that we have the bugs again, I'm still relieved when she doesn't take off her shoes and walk barefoot through our place. We have a pleasant evening, and when Julia leaves I go out with her so I can walk Abraham Lincoln.

As soon as I come back into the apartment, David says, “Magpie,” in that tone and I know what he's going to say. Actually after that he doesn't say anything, he just holds his forearm out toward me, where there's a big red welt.

“A mosquito bite?” I say hopefully, even though it's not mosquito season.

He shakes his head and lifts his shirt. Two more welts. “To be honest I've thought they were back for a few days but I didn't say anything because I wanted to be sure.”

“Fucking hell,” I say. “I thought the same thing.”

David drops down to the couch, shaking his head.

Abraham Lincoln is standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, staring at David and wagging his tail. He's waiting for his postwalk treat, which David always doles out.

I march up the stairs to the sleeping loft. In the bottom drawer of the nightstand I kept a bottle of the sulfur lotion and it's still there at the back of the drawer. Somehow I must have known we'd have the bugs again.

When I come back down to the living room, David is frowning, petting Abraham Lincoln distractedly.

I start to pace. I pass the open bathroom door and have an urge to tear off my clothes and turn the shower on as hot as possible, then curl up on the floor of the tub, letting the water beat down on me until every fucking bug is drowned and dead. If I thought it might work, I'd do it.

“If she doesn't have the bugs,” David says, “how could we
have gotten them from being in her house? Wouldn't she have them, too?”

“I would think. But with these things, who the hell knows?”

“Could we have worn something that was still infected?” David asks. “Maybe something we forgot to wash?”

“From a year and a half ago? I don't know, maybe my mom never got rid of hers.” I sit down next to David and put my head in my hands.

“But how could that be? And besides, we've seen her twice since we were cured and we didn't get them.”

“True.” And for the last few years, whenever we walk anywhere she insists on holding on to my arm, so we've even had skin-to-skin contact. My bloodstream is coursing with adrenaline, every muscle tight. “I'm going to call her right now.” I jump to my feet, but David grabs my hand and pulls me back.

“Let's do the medicine tonight and see what happens—maybe we don't really have them. We don't know for sure.”

It's after midnight anyway, and though my mother often stays up until 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning knitting or reading, she wouldn't answer her phone now. I never call this late and she doesn't pick up for anyone else.

I grab the three wineglasses from the table, carrying them by their stems into the kitchen.

Oh, no. Julia.

I step back into the living room. “I'm going to have to tell Julia. What if she gets them? I should email her right now.”

“You should. I mean, you have to.”

“But what'll I say? Oh, hey thanks for coming over and, by the way, you now have scabies!”

“What about keeping it vague? Maybe say we were exposed to something . . . maybe something from your cousin Billy . . . don't little kids always get rashes and infections? Ask her if she's
noticed any itching and tell her to keep an eye out for it. Then, if she writes back and says yes, that she's itching, you are definitely going to have to tell her.”