Maid

by Stephanie Land

  But I had a few more days of my first vacation in five years, and I tried to make the best of it. That Saturday, I walked through the local farmers’ market. There were so many kids Mia’s age, many wearing disheveled tutus and with nests of hair. I could have been walking with her, in a tank top, my tattoos visible, she in her pink plastic high heels and fairy dress. We would have blended in with everyone. No one would have given us a sideways glance like they did back in Washington. Mia would have played with the pack of children climbing up the fish statue. This could be our home. These people could be our family. I was sure of it.

  On the drive home, I sank into the quiet of the car and the sounds of the road. Each mile that I got closer to Washington, I felt an ache in my heart, like I was going in the wrong direction. For five hundred miles, the journey of the last five years played like a movie in my head. I saw Mia toddling toward me in the homeless shelter. I felt the stress and desperation to provide a good home for her. All the driving we’d done. The car crash. Those cold nights on our pull-out love seat in the studio. Maybe The Alchemist had been right. Maybe if I took the first step toward my own dreams, the Universe would open and guide the way. Maybe, to find a true home, I needed to open my heart to love a home. I had stopped believing that home was a fancy house on a hill. Home was a place that embraced us, a community, a knowing.

  * * *

  Months later, just a few days after Christmas, with Mia in the back seat, I drove the rolling hills toward Missoula again. “Can you see the lights?” I asked, turning down the radio, pointing out the twinkling stars of the valley. I glanced in the rearview mirror, saw Mia shake her head from the car seat.

  “Where are we?” she asked, staring at the snowy hills rolling past the window.

  I took a deep breath. “We’re home,” I said.

  After years of constant movement, Mia and I slowly settled. Her dad disappeared for the first several months we were there. He didn’t answer his phone, didn’t show up for the video chats we’d painstakingly fought over to schedule in the new parenting plan, and I didn’t know how to explain why.

  Mia began running from me: at home, in the grocery store, on the sidewalk, and into the street. I carried her, kicking and screaming, stooping to pick up her pink rubber boots when they fell off during a tantrum. I knew it was a natural response to change, to losing her dad, to being uprooted and replanted in a place where winter had kept us inside since we arrived. Her behavior was bigger than anything I’d experienced, and I didn’t know how to handle it. It started to feel too dangerous, too tumultuous and exhausting to take her anywhere. One morning, I had to complete two errands: the post office and the store to get tampons. Mia refused, for two hours, to get dressed or put on her shoes, kicking and screaming and fighting so hard I might as well have been trying to hold her under water. The panic attack hit me straight and fierce, left me crawling on the floor, gasping, while Mia walked happily to her room to play with toys, content in winning another battle.

  Things, as they usually do, have a way of clicking into place. I found work cleaning a large office building, plus a couple of clients who wanted me to clean their homes. One weekend, I picked up a magazine in the office’s waiting room called Mamalode and submitted a short piece. They published it in print, and I couldn’t stop staring at my name.

  The same magazine had an advertisement for a movement-based preschool at a local gymnastics center. After meeting with the owners, they agreed to let me clean the facility in exchange for tuition. One of their employees moved in with us, paying a small amount of rent with the caveat that they’d be there while I went to work before dawn, before Mia was awake.

  On a late spring day in Missoula after our move, Mia made an announcement: “Mom, we should go hiking,” she said, after looking at the blue sky through the window. I sat at the kitchen table of our downtown apartment, waiting for her to finish her breakfast. My eyes fluttered in exhaustion. I savored the weekends when I could sleep in and spend extra time sipping coffee before going through my notes from school.

  Because of that, I hesitated to go. I was too tired to fight Mia, and though she hadn’t been running from me as much since starting preschool, my level of trust remained very low. But she looked so eagerly at me, and I saw more excitement in her eyes than I had since we got here. It was the first hot, sunny weekend, and it reminded me of the magic I’d felt when I first came in August. I stood up from the table and started packing protein bars and water bottles in a backpack. “Let’s go,” I said. I’d never seen her put her shoes on so fast.

  The University of Montana sits at the bottom of a mountain—officially called Sentinel, but called “The M” by the locals, for the visible switchback trail snaking up to a large, white capital letter “M,” made from concrete. For months, I’d stared at it while walking to class, watching the tiny dots of people climb up the hill. I envied them, but I always seemed to have an excuse for not attempting it myself.

  We drove to the parking lot at the base of the mountain. Several people stood at the stairs leading to the trail. They all wore proper running or walking shoes, drinking from their water bottles, and looked ready to hike the trail up the side of the mountain.

  “Okay,” I said, smoothing out my cargo shorts and second-guessing my decision to wear sandals. “How far should we go?”

  “All the way to the M,” Mia said. Like it was nothing. Like it wasn’t a goal I’d set for myself the first time I visited. Like walking to the M didn’t mean climbing halfway up a five-thousand-foot mountain.

  When we started out on the trail, I figured we’d make it halfway to the M before Mia would wear out, that I’d end up carrying her piggyback to the car. But she skipped around each switchback, past hikers sitting on benches to take in the view.

  I watched her in disbelief, my near five-year-old daughter running up the path in her skirt and Spider-Man shoes, the arms of a stuffed giraffe snapped around her neck. She ran so fast that she passed other hikers, and then waited for me to catch up. In contrast, I huffed, dripping sweat. This was easily the hardest walk I’d done in years. I called ahead for Mia to stop, nervous she’d get to the M and slip down the slab of its surface, or just keep going over the edge. The trail and the mountain were too steep for me to see the path above. At times, I’d see Mia leaning over the edge of the trail, her little hands in fists of determination. Mine were doing the same.

  When we got to the end of the trail, we sat on the top of the M, taking in the view for a few minutes before Mia stood up and announced we should keep walking. I followed her, stunned that she wanted to keep going. She seemed perfectly content to march to the top, occasionally squatting to look at ants or inside gopher holes. I urged her to drink water, to eat a blueberry Clif Bar. And we kept going up the trail.

  There are several options for getting to the top of Sentinel, but we took the route that loops around the side. Even though the hike is less steep than the other trails, the climb to the very top from the backside is still intense. I had to rest every ten steps or so. Mia paused a few times with me. Maybe it was the endorphins, or the heat of the sun, but I felt fizzy with happiness. I could tell those final steps were a struggle for Mia’s little legs. She could see how tired I was.

  At the summit, she raised her hands over her head and laughed. I snapped pictures of her there, dancing at the top, so far above town. Our home. We sat on the edge, the mountain sloping down below us, looking over Missoula. From where we sat, the buildings looked like tiny dollhouses and the cars like shining dots. I sat there, making a mental map of the town in my head—Missoula felt so big to me, had occupied so much space in my head and heart, that it seemed strange to see it from above in its entirety.

  Immediately below us was the campus where I went to school and the auditorium where, in two years, Mia would watch me walk across a stage to accept my diploma for a bachelor’s degree in English and creative writing. From the mountain, I could see the lawn and the trees I’d lain beneath the summer I’
d visited, where I’d dreamed of being a student. I could see our apartment, the parks where we played, the downtown where Mia and I braved slippery winter sidewalks. And I saw the river running like a lazy snake through it all.

  Mia walked the whole way back to the car. In the setting sun, the light cast dark orange against her skin. She looked confidently back at me a few times. “We made it,” she seemed to be saying with her eyes. Not just up the mountain but to a better life.

  I guess they’re in and of the same.

  Acknowledgments

  This book was raised by single moms. I love that I can say that. Because single moms are fierce and brave and resilient and courageous and strong in how they live and especially how they love. I am forever grateful to the single moms who were my book doulas; who loved this book from its beginnings:

  Debbie Weingarten, the very beacon of friendship, who read so many horrible drafts of this thing (and its proposal!) and immediately answered countless frantic and celebratory texts. Kelly Sundberg, whose calm voice talked me through moments of completely freaking out so poignantly it became my inner narrative. Becky Margolis, best neighbor, listener, and fancy dinner date ever, who has blessed Mia in being her “other mom.” Andrea Guevara, whose ability to see the heart and pure essence of people astounds me. And finally, to Krishan Trotman, my incredible editor at Hachette. This book surely would have been a rambling jumble of “and then this happened” without your careful, thoughtful, and gloriously intensive edits. Thank you for putting so much of your soul into this book. It couldn’t have had a better person to guide it into the world.

  To Jeff Kleinman, the end-all, be-all of dream agents. You have no idea how much I have relished all of your emails and texts full of exclamation points.

  To my teachers: Mr. Birdsall, my fourth-grade teacher at Scenic Park Elementary in Anchorage, Alaska, for bringing out the writer in me. Debra Magpie Earling, for saying my “Confessions of the Housekeeper” essay would be a book with such conviction that it became my own prophesy to fulfill. Thank you for bringing out the storyteller in me. Also to Barbara Ehrenreich, Marisol Bello, Lisa Drew, Collin Smith, Judy Blunt, David Gates, Sherwin Bitsui, Katie Kane, Walter Kirn, Robert Stubblefield, Erin Saldin, Chris Dombrowski, Elke Govertsen, for patiently ushering and guiding my written words into coherence with utmost encouragement and empowerment. Thank you.

  To my daughters, who are the reason for everything: Coraline, your smart smiles and soft snuggles got me through many long days of writing and editing. Mia, my sweet girl, Emilia Story. Thank you for making me a mom. Thank you for living this journey with me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you, especially, for always, always humbling me in your ability to be exactly who you are and no one else. My whole chest swells with how much affection and adoration I have for the both of you, and I love you more and more every day.

  To my readers and supporters over the last several years. To the Binders. To those in the broken system of government assistance and who live their days in the crushing hopelessness of poverty. To those who were raised by single moms, and the ones raising children on their own. Thank you for continuously reminding me of the importance, the vitality, of sharing this story. Thank you for holding this book in your hands. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

  Thank you all for walking beside me.

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.

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