38

38

F lora spends the next forty-eight hours cleaning the house.

She vacuums, mops, dusts every book and baseboard, sanitizes every doorknob, washes every towel and bathmat, squeegees the windows, triple-wipes the mirrors, takes a microfiber cloth to the television screens. She organizes every drawer, disposes of old condiments and dried herbs and pantry items, scrubs the oven and refrigerator shelves.

The cleaning starts as a more thorough search for the birth tusk, but the effort is not fruitful. There are so many moments when Flora feels she must surely be on the verge of discovery. But it is nowhere. Not shoved into the back of any drawer, not hidden behind the shower curtain, not kicked under the toe space of the bathroom, not folded in the sheets of her bed, not thrown in the dirty laundry hamper. Every time she lifts an article of clothing or opens another door to a hidden nook or cranny, she is convinced the tusk will be there. But every time, her airways deflate with disappointment.

Nevertheless, Flora is alive. She has more energy than she has had in weeks, maybe even months or years. Her injuries don't bother her anymore; her achy shoulder has stopped screaming, her once-purple thumb is intact, nail and all, and her forearm is no longer infected. And how electrifying to get her house in order! To scrub away the dirt and grime and sweat and spit and vomit and blood. She doesn't even need breaks! She barely needs to eat or drink!

She leaves the bathroom for last. That bathroom. She has been afraid to spend too much time in there. But now that she is here, even this feels good. Her knees are cold against the tile floor. She reaches over the tub's edge and liberally sprays the thick white cleaning agent.

Cartoon bubble figures smile at her from the bottle's label. One of them says in a high-pitched voice, We've got hydrochloric acid! A leading cause of accidental poisoning in children! The bubble winks, like hint hint. Then a bigger bubble eats that smaller bubble and burps. A moment later, it sticks out its tongue and gets big X 's for eyes.

oopsies he's a goner

Esther's voice breaks Flora's trance. "You can probably call it quits." She chuckles and gestures toward the sparkling-clean tub.

But Flora does not. Cannot.

Connor finally retrieves her around dinnertime, insisting that she give it up for the day. And it is only then, when she is forced to pause her work, that she sees the others are right. The bathroom is clean. She can move on. Something about the realization flips a switch within her, and her energy is immediately zapped, like cutting the electricity to a lamp. She nods toward Connor, insisting she'll be down for dinner as soon as she changes out of her grubby clothes.

In the bedroom, she stares at an open drawer of shirts, paralyzed by choice. But also paralyzed by the meaninglessness of it all. She feels very, very small. Her effect on this earth is so insignificant that it cannot be measured. She spent two days cleaning a house that will only get dirty again and demand the same of her in a week. Again and again, the dirt will accumulate, and again and again, she will remove it, scrub it, disinfect it. But it's a useless gesture, really. Because it doesn't last. Nothing lasts.

A loud bbzzzzzzz pulls her from the undertow of her thoughts. A swarm of bees? She looks to the window and finds nothing. Her head swivels toward the sound—it seems like it's coming from the hallway.

Her feet carry her to the door of the bedroom, where she pauses. The bbzzzzz is louder here, and she wonders if Connor is drilling something downstairs. But as she stands there, the noise feels close. And suddenly, she is uneasy. Like a deer in the woods who can sense the shotgun around the next tree.

She takes one step into the hallway. Then another. The house is quiet save for the incessant bbzzzz, which reminds her of a dentist's drill approaching her mouth, readying itself to puncture the tooth's enamel and sink in toward her gum.

And then she's there. Back in the bathroom.

Her electric toothbrush is alive, spinning as it stands upright in its charging base.

She has no earthly clue how it would have turned itself on, but she is relieved to find the noise coming from something benign. With an exhale, she presses the black button to silence the tool. She then frowns at the water droplets that have escaped its bristles and sprayed like blood splatter all over the mirror.

When she finishes wiping it down, she turns off the light and leaves. She is only a few steps toward the stairs when— BLINK! —the light in the bathroom turns back on. Curious, Flora returns and finds the switch once again in the on position. She places her fingers firmly on the switch and deliberately pulls it down, watching as the light goes dark in response. She stands there a moment, watching the switch, then, satisfied, heads back toward the stairs.

BLINK! The light. Shining again.

The switch has popped back to the on position. That familiar feeling of unease creeps in once more, but Flora does her best to ignore it. Rolling her shoulders back, she stands a little taller and frowns at the light switch as if she could scold it into cooperating. She pulls the switch down, confirms the light has turned off, and quickly heads for the stairs.

BLINK! This time, she runs back, as if she could catch it in the act. But even though the light is on, the switch remains in the off position. Flora's brows come together in confusion, and she flicks the controller up and down, slowly at first and then quickly enough that it should produce a strobe effect—but the light does not change. It remains on, bright.

She stares at the light and the switch and the electric toothbrush. Is there a glitch in the wiring of this room? Maybe something that happened after they lost power?

"Mom?" she whispers. "Is that you?" She stands as still as possible, highly attuned to every hair on her skin. Then another thought comes to her. "Zephie?" she asks, her voice even smaller. "Zephie, are you here? Are you back?"

BLINK! The light goes off, then BLINK! comes on. After a few seconds, BLINK! it turns off, then BLINK! on and BLINK! off briefly. Then BLINK! on and remains on. Then BLINK! off. The pattern feels deliberate.

Morse code

"Flora?" It's Connor's voice from downstairs. And the second he calls, the light goes off. And stays off.

She tests the switch, flipping it up and down, and the light responds per usual.

"No," she says quietly, "no, no, no—what were you trying to tell me?"

"Flora, are you okay?" His voice is closer. He's coming up the stairs.

Flora exhales, angry at the disruption, desperate for everyone to just

leave me the fuck alone

"Hi. I'm okay," she says, stepping into the hallway.

He stands a few feet away from her, his head tilted a couple degrees off-center. A look that Flora is coming to know well. A look that means she is under scrutiny.

"We're outside grilling," he says. "Wanna join?"

She looks back at the bathroom, but nothing happens. Whoever or whatever was here is now gone.

"Yeah," she says, her gut full of snakes. "Let's go down."

Flora joins the others on the back patio and immediately realizes she didn't change her clothes after all. She's still wearing her cleaning garb, which most definitely stinks. But she doesn't have the energy to go back upstairs.

"No big deal," her dad assures her. "No dress code at this bar and grill. I mean, look at this one. She's in her pj's." He nods toward Iris, who is content in his arms.

Out of the corner of her eye, Flora sees Connor's sideways expression. He's probably wondering what she was doing upstairs all this time if she wasn't changing her clothes.

Esther pipes up from beside the grill, where she is buttering buns. "We've got hot dogs and burgers and corn. You want cheese?"

Flora nods. The events of the last few minutes ping-pong in her skull. She reaches into her pocket to finger the piece of her mother's hair. She longs for the comfort of it, the wiry strand that has become a totem to bring her back to herself.

But it's not there.

it has to be here it was here earlier

She tries to hide her panic as her fingers fish around both pockets in search of the hair. And then a horrifying thought occurs to her: What if it fell out while she was cleaning? What if she inadvertently vacuumed it up?

"You wanna hold her?" Flora's dad asks, extending Iris in her direction.

"No, uh," she says, backing away from the baby, "let me—I think I forgot something upstairs. I'll be right back."

She doesn't stick around long enough to see their expressions. She runs upstairs and retrieves the vacuum from the hallway closet. Dropping to her hands and knees, Flora struggles to unhook the compartment that holds the trash bag. When she finally does, it pops with such fervor that dust poofs out around her, covering the nearby area in a thin film of debris. She pours the contents of the bag right onto the carpet. It's a mess.

Flora doesn't think; she runs her hands through the pile of trash, sifting through bits of food and dirt and lint and gunk. She finds plenty of hair and winds each strand around her index finger, pressing each one against her skin, hoping to feel the coarseness of her mother's brittle strand. But none of them are her mother's hair.

"Flora?"

It's a female voice, and for a moment, Flora's heart lifts as she thinks Zephie has returned to her. Zephie, who can explain everything that happened, who knows Flora better than she knows herself. Zephie, who Flora swears was only moments ago trying to send her a message through the lights.

But Flora looks up and sees Esther. Of course it is only Esther.

"What happened?" Esther sees the disassembled vacuum and Flora crawling about in the debris. "What are you doing?"

Flora swallows, then coughs as dust catches in her throat. "I…"

Esther watches Flora crumble chunks of dirt between her fingertips. "Do you need some help?"

"My earring," Flora lies. "I lost an earring."

"Oh," Esther replies, relieved by this very normal explanation. A large breath escapes her lips. "Let me help. What does it look like?"

Together, they sift through the vacuum's spilled guts, Esther looking for something that was never there, and Flora realizing now that she may be doing the same.

She does not find the hair. And as these items slip away from her—first the tusk, now the hair—she feels something else slip away with them. Something like a part of her. Something that cannot be replaced.