Clean
She shifted restlessly beneath the sheets, feeling sticky and hot. Her husband rolled closer and she flinched away from his warmth. She had to get out of bed for a second, get a glass of water—and maybe she could wipe her hands off with a towel; was that grease or sweat? The oily feeling on her fingers was unbearable, and it would only take a second.
In the bathroom, she reached for the glass she kept by the sink, and then paused. How long had it been since she had washed that glass? She couldn't remember. And the hand towel had been there for at least a day . . . no, better to head to the kitchen, tiptoe down the stairs so as not to wake the children, and get a clean glass from the cupboard.
The water from the kitchen tap was just right—not too cold, and with a pleasant clear taste. It was 5:05 now, and she didn't need to be up for another two hours; time to head back to bed. As she set the glass in the sink, she realized she had forgotten to wipe off her hands, and she had touched the cupboard door and the counter . . . Had she touched anything else? Her hands felt slimy, and her skin crawled as she looked around the kitchen, where every surface was shiny with invisible, oily fingerprints.
Soap and water didn't seem to do anything against the grease, so she filled a bucket with Pine-Sol and began scrubbing furiously at the cupboard and the counter. Why would it not come off? Her frenzy was just spreading the oily film around, and her chest grew tight as she realized the grease was now on the floor and the handle of the refrigerator and the toaster and the door of the microwave. It had spread up her arms as well, and even pouring Ajax over her hands and rubbing her skin raw couldn't rid her of that filthy, slimy, greasy feeling. The air was contaminated now too, a foul miasma that was choking her. Gasping, she fled up the stairs to the bathroom and began stripping off her clothes. The shower water was as hot as she could make it, searing her skin, scalding, as she wept and shivered and scrubbed, scraped and scoured and bled, but she could not get clean, and she could not get clean.
