by Carrie Mac
THIRTEEN
On Sunday morning Junie awoke to her mother calling for her from downstairs, and by her tone, Junie knew that something was very wrong. She leapt out of bed and bounded down the stairs to find her mother at the door that led to the basement. The door was closed. Her mom held the doorknob so tightly her knuckles were white.
“What is it?” Junie asked, breathless.
“The bathroom down there backed up.” Her mother started crying. “There’s water everywhere!”
Junie tried to think of the last time she’d gone down to the basement. Maybe two years ago? It was the last time her father had brought in help before That Woman. A professional organizer called Harold, who’d acted like a drill sergeant, yelling orders and chucking stuff away behind her mother’s back until she’d ended up going to the hospital in the back of an ambulance with chest pains. Turned out it was only a panic attack, but her dad had sent Harold away, after he’d tackled only a small portion of the basement. There’d been no reason for Junie to go down there. It was floor-to-ceiling packed with her mother’s junk.
“What were you doing down there?” Junie headed for the basement door, but her mother stopped her.
“Wait!” Her mother sucked back a sob. “I went down to get that floor lamp we brought from Grandma’s. The one by my chair isn’t working any more.”
Junie couldn’t remember a particular floor lamp out of the two moving truck loads her mother had jammed into the house after her own mother had died a year ago. It was remarkable that her mother could find anything specific amidst the ruins.
“I don’t know if you should go down there.”
“Why not?” Junie pushed past her and opened the door. That was when the smell hit her.
“It’s not just water,” her mother cried behind her. “It’s raw sewage, Junie!”
So that explained why the house had smelled even worse lately, despite the candles and incense. Junie clamped a hand over her mouth and went down a couple of steps until she could peek around the corner and see the bathroom. The door was open, and even in the dim light Junie could see brown sludge oozing out of the bathroom and seeping into boxes and bags and broken furniture.
This was bad. Very bad.
Junie glanced at her watch. She was supposed to meet Wade in an hour. She’d have to go to Tabitha’s to call and cancel.
Junie backed up the stairs, stifling a gag. She closed the door behind her and took a steadying breath. “We have to call a plumber.”
“I don’t want anyone coming in here,” her mother said.
“You don’t have a choice. It’s toxic down there!”
“You and I can clean it up.” Her mother grabbed Junie’s wrists. “Please! I can’t bear the thought of someone coming in here.” She started to hyperventilate—the precursor to a panic attack.
“Calm down, Mom.” Junie pulled her hands free and set them firmly on her mother’s shoulders.
“I can’t! I can’t!” Her mother shook her head. “All of my things are down there! Ruined! All of my Mother’s things. Ruined!”
“That should be the least of your worries, Mom!” Junie couldn’t believe it. Even with their basement brimming with shit, her mom was worried about her stuff. “We have to get a plumber in here to fix it. And then we have to get a cleanup crew. A real one. Not just us. Professionals. Biohazard professionals. Seriously.”
“No. No, no, no.” Her mother groaned as if she’d been kicked in the gut. “Please, Junie. No. Please just help me clean it up. We can do it. It’s probably not as bad as it looks. Right? It’s never as bad as it looks. It just smells bad.”
“Mom, you have no idea how long it’s been like this. It might be dangerous down there.”
“No, no it’s not.” Her mother rallied, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “It’s not that bad. We can do it.”
“We can’t.” Addicts were supposed to hit rock bottom before they could admit they needed help. Junie had read about that. Seen it on TV. This, she thought, was her mother’s rock bottom. But no. She was going to try to brush it off. “We need help, Mom. You need help. We can’t do this by ourselves.”
Junie wasn’t just referring to the basement. She was referring to her mother’s entire life. Her body, her mind, her soul. And her home. “Give up, Mom. Please. Isn’t this bad enough?”
Her mother fixed Junie with a determined gaze, as if Junie hadn’t just said what she’d said. “We can do it. The Rawley girls to the rescue. We’ll get cleaning supplies and go down there and tackle it. Good as new.”
“No, Mom.” Junie shook her head. She raised her hands in a truce. “You’re on your own this time.” One thing that Evelyn St. Claire had said, when she’d still been pretending to be a responsible life coach, was that Junie and her dad were enabling her mother. By keeping her secrets and not saying no. By not giving her difficult ultimatums. That Woman might have been a bitch, but she wasn’t entirely stupid. “I can’t help you any more. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do this to me now, sweetheart.” Her mother’s tears were back. “I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it. I do. But not today, okay? Don’t abandon me today.”
“I’m not abandoning you. I’m trying to do what’s right. For both of us.” Junie dropped her hands to her sides, defeated. Evelyn had said her mother would plead and cajole. And it was working. Junie felt the familiar tugs of guilt pulling at her gut. But along with that was anger.
“You’d leave me alone to deal with this by myself?” Her mother’s voice quavered.
Junie sighed. “Emotional blackmail. Do you remember? That’s exactly what Evelyn St. Claire said you would do if we set limits.”
Her mother reeled back as if she’d been slapped. “I can’t believe you’re bringing up that woman. Now, of all times.”
“That Woman knows a thing or two about your sickness.”
“I’m not sick.”
“You are!”
“I am not sick. I need help getting myself sorted out. I have a severe organizational problem. I’m a collector whose collections have gotten the better of her. But I am not sick.”
“You are so, Mom. You’re a compulsive hoarder. You know that, I know that. Dad knows it. And That Woman knows it too.”
“Please don’t talk about her, Junie. Please. Not in my house.”
“Evelyn said you would do whatever it took to hold onto all your crap, even if you had to emotionally blackmail us into going along with you, and that is exactly what you’re doing now. It has to stop, Mom.”
“What has to stop is you mentioning her!” Her mother covered her ears with her hands.
The day before, Junie had told Evelyn how much she hated her. And here she was now, touting her advice. The irony was not lost on her.
“She said you would use guilt to keep us under your thumb. And she was right.”
Her mother sank to the floor and leaned her head against the wall. Her breathing quickened again. She banged her head, so hard that a pile of papers on a shelf above slipped, sliding in a cascade of sheets to her side. Her mother hit her head again, harder.
“Don’t do this to me today! Give me more time! Not today!” She banged her head again, and again. “Not today! Not today! Not today!”
“Mom!” Junie grabbed her mother’s arm, alarmed. “Stop it!”
Her mother looked up, her eyes suddenly clear. Manipulative. “You stop it.” She said it quietly, emphasizing each word carefully. “Don’t abandon me. Not now. I don’t think I could take it. I know I can’t. I would die, Junie. I would die here. Is that what you want?”
Junie went in search of usable cleaning supplies, looking throughout the house and garage. She found eight mops, but only one that still had a sponge attached that wasn’t mouldy. She found four brooms, but they wouldn’t be much help. She also found three large packages of paper towels, each with twenty-four rolls. She didn’t have to search for bleach or bathroom cleanser. Junie kept those things upstairs in her own bathr
oom, the one that was spotless. She knew there wasn’t enough of either, though, to tackle this mess. There were as many empty bleach bottles as you could ever possibly need, though—enough to build a raft, and even more empty cleanser bottles of other varieties. They were all strung up through the handles with twine, hanging from a rafter in the garage, waiting to be turned into bird feeders for the local bird rescue centre. But one thing was for sure, there was not enough bleach in the house to deal with a mess of that magnitude. A trip to the store was in order.
Her mother put together a list while Junie went upstairs to get dressed. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She’d tried to be strong. She’d try to call her mom on her shit, as Evelyn had advised—not in those words, maybe. But Junie had been listening. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, those two weeks that Evelyn had been in their home, working with her mother, Junie had learned a lot. Everything was to go into one of three bins: keep, toss, donate. Sort like with like—that was when all the bleach bottles got strung up, because her mother refused to part with them—and then find a home for each item. No home, it goes. And the biggest rule: be firm with the hoarder. Keep your boundaries.
Junie wondered if today’s disaster was karmic payback for having been such a bitch to Evelyn the day before. “I’m not apologizing,” Junie grumbled to herself as she made her way back downstairs. “Not a chance.”
“Take a taxi.” Her mother held out a wad of cash. “It’ll be easier with all the stuff to carry.”
Junie gawked at her. “There is NO WAY that I’m going to get all this cleaning stuff by MYSELF.”
“But—”
“No!” Junie threw the money at her. “You might’ve guilted me into helping you clean up this mess, but there is no effin’ way that I’m doing any part of it by myself. Get some clean clothes on, wash your face and get your purse. You are coming with me.”
“Watch your tone with me, Junie.” Her mother squatted and retrieved the money with a wheeze. “I’m still your mother. All right. I’ll come.”
Junie took a step back, she was surprised that her mother had given in so easily. Maybe being firm was the way to go. It wasn’t going to get her mother to agree to bring in professionals to fix the disaster downstairs, but it had accomplished this one small victory of getting her mother out the front door.
They got a taxi to the hardware store, but had to wait twenty minutes until it opened at ten. Her mother sat on the curb outside, working on keeping her breathing from heading toward panic, while Junie went across the road to the gas station and got them both mochas from the coffee machine. They were sickly sweet and on the watery side, but Junie was a firm believer that a hot drink was a ready balm. Her grandma had taught her that. Her mother’s mother, dead now just over a year.
Junie waited at the crosswalk for the light to change, a cup in each hand and an oily muffin wrapped in plastic wrap in each pocket. She thought about her grandma. She was probably wringing her hands in the afterlife to see all of her possessions carelessly crammed into a basement afloat with crap. When she’d been alive she’d come over once a week or more, with occasional hand-wringing and the odd jag of tears when Junie’s mother wasn’t looking. It had upset her no end, but she’d tried not to let her own daughter see that. Instead, she and Junie and her mother would play cards and have tea and homemade cookies that her grandma had brought, after her mother had stopped baking.
When Junie was ten, her grandmother had pulled her aside, while she was getting her coat on to leave, and told Junie that she’d have to keep an eye on her mother.
“You’ll have to see that it doesn’t get any worse than it is.” Her grandma shook her head, her eyes getting moist. “She wasn’t the neatest of children either. But I’d always hoped once she had—” Her voice caught. She cleared her throat. “I’d hoped that she would pull up her socks for you. She has her reasons, sure. But it’s gotten worse since—”
Junie gave her a hug. “It’s okay. I can take care of her.”
“No, no.” Her grandma shook her head. “It shouldn’t be like that. She should be taking care of you.”
Junie knew that was true. But it wasn’t happening. And hadn’t for a long time. Even then.
“I worry about you. I worry about her. I know she’s suffering—”
Junie never knew what had made her grandmother bring it up that day, but that was the first and last time that she ever said anything in reference to the growing piles of junk, the haphazard collections, the filth. Shortly after that, she’d stopped coming by the house altogether. For a while, Junie and her mother had gone over to her small apartment for cards and tea, but then her mother had stopped visiting, sensing the judgment, wincing at the critical tone in her own mother’s voice. The shame stopped her from talking to her mother, and pride stopped Junie’s grandma from reaching out. Junie’s mother and grandma hadn’t spoken for months when Junie’s grandma died suddenly of a stroke. It was very sad, and made everything even worse after.
Junie missed her grandmother. Very much. Sometimes, not often any more, she picked up the phone and dialled her grandma’s number, just to hear it ring once before she hung up. Just on the off chance that she might pick up.
The light changed and Junie crossed the road, keeping her mother in her sights all the while. She’d put on a clean pair of black sweatpants and a brand new red cardigan overtop of the matching sweatshirt, but she still looked dishevelled. As though she were a homeless person begging for change outside the hardware store, who had been given a new sweater by a good Samaritan. Especially sitting on the curb like that. Junie was embarrassed for her. For herself, too.
She offered her mother one of the cups and wondered if anyone watching would think she was being kind to a bag lady, if she was the one who’d given her the sweater. She sat beside her and unwrapped the muffins and offered her mother one.
“Carrot,” she said. “With walnuts.”
“Thank you, honey.” Her mother sipped the coffee and then picked at the muffin, not really eating it.
“If you’re going to have the energy to clean up down there, you’ll need to eat.” Junie took a bite of her own muffin and chewed. Once again, she felt like the mother. “Eat!” she said again as her mother stared at the muffin, not touching it.
The store opened, and they got a cart. They collected several bottles of bleach, a jumbo pack of mop heads, a large box of heavy-duty garbage bags, five different kinds of antibacterial bathroom cleansers and several pairs of rubber gloves.
“We’ve got buckets at home,” her mother said as they passed them. “And lots of rags, too.”
“What rags?”
“I’ve got a few boxes of your father’s old T-shirts. We can use those.”
Junie marvelled at the thought that her mother would get rid of those. Even to use to clean up the mess.
“Is that what happens when you break up? All of a sudden you don’t care what happens to his stuff?” It came out snarkier than she’d meant, but her mother didn’t seem to notice.
“He’s taken what he wants, if that’s what you’re asking. These are really old, from when you were little is my guess.”
“Then why not get rid of them before?” It was worth a shot.
“And if I had,” her mother reasoned, “we’d be spending money on a box of rags instead. I just saved us five bucks.”
Junie stopped in her tracks and rolled her eyes. She would never get her mother’s logic. Ever.
Before they went to the till, they asked one of the salespeople if they had disposable coveralls and masks.
“Sure do,” he said and led them to the back of the store. “What sort of mask are you looking for?”
“We’re cleaning up raw sewage,” Junie said, not willing to bother with niceties.
“Ah, right.” The guy took down a heavy-duty mask with two can-shaped filters and a box of paper masks. “The big one would be the best, but it’s pricey. It’ll keep you safe from the nasties. This little one
here will do the trick too, but obviously not as well as the more expensive one. Depends how much poop you’re looking at.”
“A lot of poop,” Junie said.
“The sewer just backed up into the bathroom,” her mother explained. “It’s not that bad.”
“Oh, yes it is.” Junie glared at her mother, and then flashed a smile at the guy. “It’s as bad as you can imagine, actually.”
“Sorry to hear it,” the guy said. He dropped two of the heavy-duty masks into the cart. “You should get the professionals in, but if you’re going to tackle it on your own, I’d go with these. If money’s not an issue.”
Money was always an issue. Junie looked to her mother, eyes narrowed. If she dared to say that they couldn’t afford the better masks, Junie would rip into her right there in the hardware store. If her mother could order four identical porcelain miniature Doberman Pinscher figurines from the Shopping Channel, she could damn well buy the better masks.
Her mother said nothing, just pushed the cart along to where the coveralls were stacked on the shelf and added four of them to the cart, along with a pair of safety goggles each, which had also been recommended by the sales guy.
Back home, they wrestled their way into the coveralls and found gumboots amidst the mess in the garage. Junie’s mother found a pair with the tags still on and steel toes that made the boots extra heavy, and Junie found a red boot one size too small and a black one that was one size too big, but they’d do.
Junie and her mother stood at the top of the basement stairs and pulled on the masks. It was like wearing some space alien mask, with each breath clicking through the vents. Junie was pretty sure that if they ever had to endure nuclear fallout, these masks would keep them safe.
They each grabbed two handfuls of cleaning supplies and went down the stairs. Junie went first, and when she stepped off the bottom step, she knew at once that it was far worse than she’d first imagined. Her feet were stuck in shitty muck, all the way over by the stairs, which was a good long way from the bathroom. She turned to her mom, who was still halfway down the stairs.
