Page 3 of Fighting the Tide
She turns away once more, her oversized sweater rippling in the wind and her worn jeans hanging loose from her waist.She doesn’t eat enough, none of us do, but she often gives up her portion to feed me.Even then, it’s still not enough.It doesn’t matter how often I fight her on it, she wins in the end.
“Hi, honey.”She gives me another smile, the edges not quite meeting her eyes as she leans in to kiss my cheek.“How was school?”
“Fine.”I shrug and open the door to let her through, then follow her back into the house where she gives me an apologetic smile when she looks down at my father.
“I asked him to go to bed.”She bends to pick up his discarded beer bottle and heads to our kitchen, a small space in the corner of the cottage made up of one wooden counter, a wood stove, and a small fridge.“Did you eat lunch?There are some fresh oysters in the fridge I caught today.”
“I’m good,” I say around my rumbling stomach, ensuring we have enough for all of us later.“We can eat that for dinner.”
We leave the house and I guide my mother around the hole in the porch and then the few potholes until we reach our rusted and falling apart Ford truck.It used to be red at some point, but now it’s a dull orange.The inside reeks of cigarettes and alcohol while the floor is littered with butts and empty beer bottles.It’s disgusting, rickety, and old but it’s our only means of transportation and gets us around town.
I get behind the wheel because I’ve been driving since I got my learner’s permit last summer and Mom much prefers being the passenger most days.We make our way into town as the houses grow larger, cleaner, and the roads are paved, free of potholes, and lined with pruned trees and bushes.Lawns are lush and vibrant, and the sky is even brighter, a blue my mother says matches my eyes.This is where the upper crust lives, the cream of the crop, and where the Easthams reside.These are the houses my mother cleans every day, then returns back to our shack in the evenings.
I turn onto the Easthams’ perfect, cobblestone-patterned driveway that’s lined with manicured bushes and head toward the house standing majestic at the end.I bite the inside of my cheek when I park next to a bright pink convertible and look up at the colonial-style home.It has a pristine-painted wooden siding and a brand-new shingled roof.The windows even gleam without the grime of the outside world coating its surface.
Sometimes the cleanest exteriors house the most rotten interiors.
Chapter Two
“Youknowthedrill.”Mom hands me a bucket with a pair of bright yellow gloves hanging off the edge and an assortment of cleaning sprays inside of it.“You head on upstairs,” she says, “while I tackle the main floor’s kitchen and bathrooms.”
I look up toward the second-floor landing, knowing Brooke is up there somewhere, and let out a long exhale, reminding myself of the equipment I’m going to have by the end of this summer.It’ll all be worth it when I get that scholarship and work on a life to get my mother out of the house she’s living in.I watch as she slips off her shoes beside the door and strides toward the kitchen, her thin frame moving swiftly as her feet shuffle along the sparkling, waxed tile.Guilt eats away at me, knowing that she’s trapped in this life because of me, even if my father had a hand in it all.I take off my shoes and place them beside Mom’s as I swing the bucket over my shoulder and start up the steps.One foot after the other, each one wearing a different colored sock.I didn’t notice that this morning when I got dressed for school and it’s slightly embarrassing.Hopefully Brooke doesn’t see them.
Once I get to the top of the stairs, I look to the right and find three doors.I know them like the back of my hand.Linen closet, a bathroom, and the master bedroom.My mother has been cleaning the Easthams’ house for over ten years, and when I was a kid, she would have no other choice but to bring me with her during the summer days when I didn’t have school.I was kept on a short leash during those years because a broken vase was worth what my mother made in a year.It’s been a few years since I’ve been here, but the layout is still ingrained in my mind.I open the door to the bathroom and get to work.I spray down the toilet, clean the mirror and the countertop, fold the towels over the rack, and then spray a little air freshener once I’m done.
Next, I slip into the master bedroom to make the bed, wipe down the side tables, and dust the dressers and the TV.Once that’s finished, I head over to the small settee and straighten the blankets and pillows, then I slip into their bathroom and do the same in there that I did with the last.
Making my way back out to the landing, I pass by the stairs and then look down the long corridor.Three doors stand on either side, the dark, oak slabs gleaming under the small chandelier lights, and the crystal stones shooting fragmented rainbows along the walls and floor.My socked toes curl downward to brace myself, burrowing into the plush carpet, the color similar to vanilla pudding.Each step I take toward her bedroom feels like I’m fighting the tide.Something is pushing me back, like a warning or a premonition, but I fight it with each step.This has never happened to me before.The first door to my right is a study, so I slip in there first and take a deep breath, willing my heart to slow its pounding.
I dust the desk and the shelves as my heart rate returns to normal, straighten up the books, and turn off the lamp, then head back out as my heart’s tempo picks up again.I’m nervous, no, I’m more anxious than anything.It’s embarrassing to be known as poor, to be told you’re cute but too bad you’re poor.It’s something that has stuck inside my mind after hearing it from some of the girls at school, confining me to the small bubble I was born into, but when I’m here, inside this house, my bubble explodes and everything is revealed in perfect clarity.I will never be good enough for a girl like Brooke, not while I’m holding a bucket of cleaning supplies and living in a shack.
It's not that I want Brooke Eastham, it’s more the principle of things.It’s the pride I have regardless of where I live and what I can afford.Being in this house and wearing these ridiculous rubber gloves will be ammunition for the figurative gun that’s already pointed at my head.
I make my way across the hall to the small powder room and clean that.I try to take my time with it to avoid the encounter I know is coming, but I have to face it eventually.I let the images of the equipment I want filter through my mind again as I step back out into the hall.There’s one more linen closet, two guest bedrooms, which I won’t have to step into because they are closed off to my mom and me for some reason, and then the third and final door on the right belongs to her.There’s an en suite in there that has to be cleaned, so there’s no avoiding it.
I stand outside her door, the wood vibrating with the muffled bass from inside her room.Not even the soundproofing can hold it all in.I knock, rapping my knuckles to the wood even though I know she won’t hear it.Of course she doesn’t answer and no other sound comes from inside her bedroom, so I grip the handle of her door and inch it open as I peer into the sunlit room.Loud, angry music hits my ears like an assault as I poke my head in further, finding the bedroom empty.I release the breath I’m holding with relief, hoping that maybe she’s downstairs in the pool and I’ll get the chance to clean her room without her commentary.So I make quick work of her bed, dust down her side tables, and then when the music switches to another angry song, I head over to her iPod dock and turn it off, giving my ears a much-needed break.I clear her laundry off the floor, wrinkling my nose with how unkempt she is, and then begin to clear out the coffee cups, throwing them into the garbage bag I find in the bucket.Once I’m finished with her room, I head to her en suite.I open the door and the sounds of the shower startle me so I backpedal out of the room, but not before my eyes find the mirror and the reflection of the shower stall on its surface.I’m not a pervert, it’s not something I would have tried to find or seek out, and I would have continued out of that room regardless of what I saw if I thought everything was okay, but what I find in that mirror has me rushing back inside, the bucket of cleaning supplies falling from my hand to crash on her carpeted floor.
Brooke Eastham still has on her school uniform as the steaming hot water hits the clothing on her back and her hair, creating a soaking wet curtain around her face.Her shoulders are shaking, and I can’t tell if it’s from crying or the wet clothing because she’s not making a sound.
“Brooke,” I say her name, the sound getting eaten up by the spray of water.I hesitantly step a little closer to the stall and try to get a better look at her hair-covered face.“Brooke,” I say a little louder and watch as her head rises from her arms that are wrapped around her knees.Mascara streams down her face in thick, black rivulets, and her blue eyeshadow, as if melting off her skin, stains down along her cheeks and over her nose.Her lips look pale, not the usual vibrant pink I’m used to, and when her light hazel eyes meet mine, I’m shocked to find nothing in their depths.There’s no recognition, no emotion, just a blank, haunted stare looking back at me.“Brooke.”I reach in and turn off the water then grab a thick, terry towel from the shelf beside the stall.“Are you okay?”I hold out the towel toward her as she blinks, regaining focus as her eyes stay rooted on my face.
“Nolan?”Her voice cracks with recognition, the tenor coarse like she’s been screaming, and the sound shoots fear into my heart.I have never witnessed Brooke this way before.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I reassure her as I step closer to the stall and bend slightly, the towel still open in my hands.“What happened?”
She blinks again and looks around the bathroom as her chin begins to tremble like she’s holding in a sob.“He cheated on me,” she whispers.My brows crash together as I tip my head to the side.I didn’t think Brooke was dating anyone because she’s always with the same group.She sees my confusion and pushes herself up to standing.“David MacNeill,” she clarifies.The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it to anyone in our school.“He left for Colombia this year,” she informs me, and then it all clicks into place.Davidusedto go to our high school.
“You guys were dating?”I ask as I shake the open towel, prompting her to step into it.She does and lets me wrap it around her shoulders before I take a step back, but it doesn’t stop the water that’s now soaking her bathroom floor.The floor I’ll have to clean now.
“For eight months.”Her voice shakes.“For eight whole months, and he promised me that when he went to Columbia, he would still be mine, but he lied.”She turns and walks back into her bedroom, her feet trailing through the puddle of water dripping from her uniform and soaking into the carpet.She has the corner of the towel pressed to her face as she sniffles into it.“Why do boys lie, Nolan?”she calls out from her closet as I grab another towel and throw it on the floor to soak up the water.“He never truly loved me.”I can hear her hangers crashing and clothes being thrown to the floor, irritating me further.Doesn’t she realize I’m here to tidy this place up?“Do you know he couldn’t even tell me himself?His best friend sent me a photo.”
“Damn,” I mutter before I let loose a low whistle.That’s pretty bad.I bend to pick up the wet towel and toss it into the hamper in the corner.
“Right?”she snaps, surprising me when I realize she heard what I said.“He wanted his cake here and to eat it there as well.”
“Okay,” I mumble and step out of the bathroom.I inch toward the bedroom door to escape the ever-changing emotions of Brooke Eastham when she comes flying out of her closet in a short skirt and tank top.The look of irritation on her face is an improvement from how I found her a few minutes ago.
“Where are you going?”Her hands land on her hips as her foot begins to tap into the wet carpet, watching me take another step toward her door and pick up my bucket of supplies.
