I cleaned her house for eight years, then before moving she asked me to come back without my cleaning supplies EditoronOctober 6, 2026Leave a Comment on I cleaned her house for eight years, then before moving she asked me to come back without my cleaning supplies the kitchen around ten o’clock and looked at Willa sitting at her table. Willa looked at her. She pushed her glasses into her nose. “Hi”, Willa said. “I like your house. It has a lot of windows.” “That’s right”, Mrs. Whitaker agreed. “How much?” Mrs. Whitaker thought about it. “I don’t know, actually. I never counted.” “Can I count them?” I was halfway up the stairs with a bucket. I stopped. “Willa. We talked about it. You stay on the chair.” Mrs. Whitaker looked at me. Then to Willa. “She can count them”, she said. “I would like to know.” So my daughter spent this whole snowy day walking around Margaret Whitaker’s house with a sketchbook, counting windows and drawing a floor plan. Room by room. She designed the kitchen with the checkered floor. She designed the living room with the piano. She designed the free-standing bathtub. When she had finished, she presented it to Mrs. Whitaker at the kitchen table. “Forty-two windows”, Willa announced. “And one of them in the attic is broken. There’s a bird’s nest in it.” Mrs. Whitaker looked at the drawing for a long, long time. She didn’t say anything. “You can keep it”, Willa said. “If you want.” “Thank you, Willa”, Mrs. Whitaker said softly. “I would love that.” I didn’t think about it anymore. I thought it would end up in a drawer somewhere, or in the recycling bin. Life went on. It wasn’t easy. But it continued. I gained more customers. The second year I had nine houses a week. Monday was the Garcias and the young couple with the twins. Tuesdays were the dentist’s office and old Mr. Pham. On Wednesday there were two houses in the new development on the side of the highway. On Fridays there was a real estate office and a woman named Tiffany who loved her cushions arranged in a very specific zigzag pattern. And on Thursday, it was Mrs. Whitaker. She was never my biggest customer and she wasn’t my best paid. But it was the one I could always count on. The Garcias canceled when they went on vacation. The real estate agency cut me down to every other week when the market slowed down. Tiffany fired me once because of the cushions, then rehired me a month later. ← Previous Page Next Page →
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