Page 22

R emi pulled up to the run-down apartment complex after a long day of work and a fucked-up night with no sleep. She was lacking the energy she needed to finish her last job of the day. Walking in on Max like she had yesterday did a number on her. Seeing him like that reignited a fear in her that she thought she had moved on from. She thought she had let that part of her past go, laid it to rest, and healed.

But surprise, surprise, she still feared finding her loved one's dead.

Weird, right?

She rolled her eyes at her brain’s sick sense of humor. It had been four years since she found her mother unresponsive, in the same way she found Max last night. It was so oddly similar that it made her stomach churn. The smell of the old take-out boxes, the heavy musk of his drunken body, the lingering scent of whiskey in the thick stagnant air… it made her skin crawl.

She was so mad at him.

She was also so sad for him.

She was so fucking confused.

Pulling her cleaning cart behind her, she knocked on Mrs. Keller’s door and waited for the old woman to slowly make her way to let her in. She had been cleaning Mrs. Keller’s house for almost a year now as a part of her Free Clean charity program. Remi had started Free Clean with Busy Bee to help people who were in the same situations she and her mother had been in when she was a child. Remi would clean the old woman’s apartment, and even make sure Mrs. Keller’s meds were in the small daily container to help her remember to take them.

The state failed people like Mrs. Keller time and time again, and Remi knew it wasn’t her job to step in. It wasn’t her job to do what she did for free, but it felt like the right thing. Each time she threw away the trash that lined the floor of the small one-bedroom apartment, scrubbed the toilet, and wiped down the countertops, she saw her mom in the back of her head, smiling and proud, telling her she was doing the right thing.

No one had ever intervened for her mother. No one had even thought to intervene for Remi. No one saw the mess and tried to help clean it up. All anyone ever did was sweep it under the rug, one eviction notice after another. Where were the people that were supposed to step in and offer to help? Where were the heroes that saved the kid and helped the mom recover? They never showed up. And because of that, Remi showed up—even on the hardest days. Even today.

The first time Remi cleaned for Mrs. Keller it was supposed to be a one-time thing after the elderly woman was served an eviction notice for her hoarding. A friend of a friend who knew about Remi’s non-profit, Free Clean, contacted her and told her about Mrs. Keller’s situation. A situation that ultimately would have rendered the older woman homeless. Remi showed up for Mrs. Keller, no questions asked, and then she showed up the next week, just to check in on the older woman, only to realize the house was trashed again. So, she showed up the week after that too, knowing this woman was stuck in the cycle of hoarding, and at her age, with no one to support her or get her the help she needed, she would never stop. It was a vicious cycle, one Remi was well-versed in, so she kept showing up and never stopped.

“It got bad this week,” Mrs. Keller warned upon opening the door, a rank odor hitting Remi’s nose the instant she stepped in.

“Mrs. Keller, what are you holding on to that stinks?” Remi asked.

“Probably that Costco chicken you brought me. I kept looking at it. I knew it needed to be taken out days ago. But I just…” she said, her voice lowering to a whisper as she trailed off.

“It’s okay. We’ll get it sorted out today,” Remi assured.

“I wanted to throw it away before the maggots came…” she murmured, trailing off again, and Remi’s heart broke for the old woman.

“It’s fine Mrs. Keller. I’m no stranger to the little pests. I’ll get them cleaned up in no time.”

She would clean them up, but truth be told, the sight of the maggots brought on fierce memories of her childhood; the way they would pop under her small bare feet in the middle of the night as a child. She remembered getting up to use the restroom as a young girl, feeling the crunch of the maggots under the weight of her steps as she made her way past the rotting bags of food, and KFC chicken carcasses her mother refused to get rid of. Sadly, the little white bugs were a core memory from Remi’s childhood.

Room by room Remi fixed the woman’s house, and while she watched the small apartment transform back into a clean space, her brain on the other hand, remained a mess.

Remi realized that while she was good at cleaning up other people's messes, she sucked at facing her own. Especially the mess that was Max Miller. What she walked in on yesterday, and the fact that she knew he was hurting, killed her. While she wanted to fix him, she couldn’t; that was his burden to carry and that scared her because while she was still angry at him, she was also worried about him, his career, his health, and fuck, the list went on and on.

The part that hurt the most about all of this shit with Max was that it was none of her damn business, he had made that very clear.