Outside, the wind picked up, gliding up from the lake and over the rooftop. It moaned low into the shingles, and its voice echoed down through the chimney’s open flue and into the great room. The walls and ceiling creaked loudly against the force of the wind, but the structure was sound. It was not ready to let the elements win.
And they won’t, Kris told herself.
First, the countertops. She soaked a sponge under the sink faucet and gave it a squeeze. She picked up one of the spray bottles from her collection, twisted the nozzle to on, and pulled the trigger. A thick mist of cleaner settled onto the grimy tiles, the scent of lemon filling the air. It was artificial, a man-made approximation of citrus, but Kris breathed it in deeply, enjoying the illusion of what it wanted to be. Fresh. Clean.
She leaned down hard on the sponge and worked it across the dull yellow tiles in short, forceful strokes. She made her way from the end closest to the foyer, over the grease-specked surface of the 1960s-era GE electric range and down toward the sink where the collection of old beer cans still stood like a redneck Stonehenge. Kris snatched up the cans and tossed them into an empty Safeway bag, then scrubbed at a beer stain that darkened the tiles like an irregular mole until every trace of it was gone.
It took about half an hour for Kris to make her way to the end of the counter, across the dusty shell and filthy top of the fridge (where an entire army of crickets had met their demise) and over the island’s butcher block surface with its countless knife wounds. Another twenty minutes, and she had given each of the upper cabinets a quick cleaning, not exactly thorough but “good enough for jazz” as her father used to say. Most of the hinges on the cabinet doors needed to be tightened and a few would have to be replaced, but that could wait.
Tossing the now-blackened sponge into the sink, Kris stepped back and allowed herself a moment to admire her work. The yellow-tiled countertops sparkled with a cheerful retro charm. The dampness from the sponge brought a richness to the cherry cabinets. Sunlight filtering in through trees outside the breakfast nook windows cast leaf-shaped shadows across the entire room. They swam over the island like lazy tadpoles.
She could see the faint image of herself there, not much older than Sadie, standing beside the island while her mother, wearing her favorite Heart T-shirt (from the actual concert, not the bullshit recycled shirts twenty-somethings wore these days) and jean shorts, cooked grilled cheese sandwiches dripping with gooey Velveeta in a cast-iron skillet.
Kris took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. The stress of the day loosened a bit in her chest and shoulders. A warmth shimmered through her tight muscles.
Behind her, a small figure moved by in a strange swaying dance.
Kris turned.
There on a stage streaked with irregular lines of soapy water, backlit by the golden pillars of the towering windows, stood the silhouette of a small girl. She grasped a tall wooden handle at its center and clumsily yet methodically dragged its end back and forth over the floor.
Another ripple of warmth shifted through the twisted ropes of muscle at the base of Kris’s neck.
She’s been at it this whole time. Helping her mama.
“Sadie,” Kris called out.
The sound startled the little girl, the mop handle slipping from her hands and tipping like a felled tree. It hit the floor with a sharp crack.
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said in her soft, timid voice. “I didn’t mean to …”
“Oh God, no, it’s okay, sweetie.”
Kris carefully crossed the wet floor and lifted up the mop, leaning the handle against the side of the couch. She crouched down as she always did when she wanted to speak to Sadie on her level.
“Do you want to take a break?” Kris asked.
Sadie considered the question for a moment, and then she shook her head.
Kris smiled. “Okay, well …”
She looked around the massive room. Shadows clung to every corner. It was so strangely dim for such a sunny day. At first Kris assumed another cloud had momentarily covered the sun, but the windows still glowed with golden fire. It was as if the light stopped there, the grime covering the glass refusing to let it pass through.
The windows, Kris thought.
It was time to let the light in.
“I have an idea,” Kris told her daughter.
She crossed back into the kitchen and dug into one of the Safeway bags, fishing around until she found two fresh rags. She snatched the bottle of Windex from the breakfast nook table as she passed back through the archway, into the great room. She held one of the rags out to Sadie.
“Let’s see who can clean the windows the fastest. What do ya say?”
Sadie did not move.
Kris held the rag up higher, just to the side of Sadie’s face. “You take the left, I’ll take the right. First one to finish gets to eat that Hershey’s bar.”
For the second time that day, a smile succeeded in lifting Sadie’s cheeks. In a flash, she reached out and snatched the rag from Kris’s hand.
“On your mark …” Kris set the toes of her boots against the floor as if she meant to launch into a sprint. “Get set …”
She won’t go for it, Kris’s mind told her. She’s in mourning. She doesn’t want to play games. She’s only helping you clean because it takes her mind off of the awful fucking situation you and Jonah have put her in.
Jonah put her in, Kris corrected herself.
But a child did not think such things. A child looked to both of her parents equally, expecting them to do everything possible to protect her from pain and sorrow. And in that sense, both Jonah and Kris had failed. They had allowed Sadie to know the harshest truth that life has to offer: happiness is not guaranteed. It is not a God-given right. It is not forever earned. We are all children with our hands in the cookie jar, and our happiness can be snatched away at any moment and held cruelly out of our reach.
“Go!” Kris heard herself cry.
But Sadie did go for it.
Without warning, she snatched up the bottle of Windex sitting by Kris’s foot and raced to her section of windows.
“Hey!” Kris yelled playfully.
Sadie giggled—Giggled! Sweet baby fucking Jesus she’s laughing!—and with both hands, the rag still clutched tightly in the palm of one, she squeezed the trigger and sprayed a thick mist of cleaner across the smeared, filthy glass.
Kris rocked back on one foot, a hand to her lips, and watched as her daughter frantically swiped through the dirty lines of cleaning fluid quickly running down to the base of the window. The other side of the pane would need to be cleaned as well, but even with this simple action, streams of sunlight burst through the clear sections of glass, brightening the room.
One room at a time. We will bring this place back to life.
Sadie had just sprayed another healthy dose of cleaner across a dingy section of the window when Kris walked briskly by and snatched the plastic Windex bottle from her hand.
Sadie cried out in exaggerated protest.
“It’s a race,” Kris told her with a wry smile. “You gotta do what it takes to win.”
She gave the squirt bottle’s trigger a few quick squeezes, covering a large section of the right windows with bubbling solution.
Kris brought her own rag up to begin sweeping away the running lines of liquid, but her hand froze inches from the glass. The Windex bottle dangled from the fingertips of her other hand, suddenly forgotten.