Dust

I wipe cobweb-palmed ghosts of handprints off of Oscar's window. Nothing here looks familiar in the eye of unflinching daylight. A spider hangs from the skeleton of a dead chandelier. The only thing I recognize from last night is the smell of dust. Even after taking my morning shower and changing into a clean, pressed uniform, all I can smell is dust. It clings to my hair, to my teeth, to my tongue, my skin. Last night clings to everything.

My hands plunge into warm, soapy water. I kneed and press the washcloth under the bubbles before wringing it out. I do this again and again. I wipe the washcloth in figure eights to keep the dust in front. Even so, I cannot clean this room so much as move the dirt around. Not without a bigger bucket. Maybe several buckets. Many washcloths. More time.

None of the lights work in this room. Once the sun sets, my time is up.

I go to clean the windowsill. The dust is thick except for the three diagonal silhouettes of my fingers. Evidence of the night before, tangibility of the blurry memory of Oscar's voice calling my name from the driveway, of the strange man, of the drink, of the blindfold. I press the washcloth to the old wood and wipe it away. A stray sequin from last night's dress stops me in my tracks. A clump of my hair forces me to sit down.

Oscar didn't know this room existed. How could he when he'd inherited so many rooms all at once? It was why I'd been hired as a live-in cleaner in the first place. Trying to get away from people like the strange man last night was why I'd agreed to the job. Back then, Oscar and I had both been desperate for compassion. Maybe that's why we had gotten along so quickly. With no one else around, we started having meals together. He told me about his work as an English professor and I told him about the bar I used to work at in an old blink-and-you-miss-it ghost town north of Toronto. After work, he'd be tired of talking to students all day and I'd be tired of not talking as I cleaned. We filled the holes in each other's moods like salt water, cleansing infections we didn't know were there until they were gone.

Last night's party was supposed to be the night I met Oscar's friends and family as more than his cleaner, as his.

It had started off fine. I met some of his colleagues, his aunties, a few friends from high school. When Oscar left to go find more liquor for the bar, a couple of his friends from his football days told me about the old room on the third floor. Before Oscar's grandmother passed, they'd come here in the winters while she was in Florida, to get drunk and party. They insisted they probably knew Oscar's house better than he did. One of them rolled his eyes in my direction, "But you probably know this house better than all of us, being the cleaner and all. Right, Sasha?"

His mouth was laughing but his eyes stayed steady on mine. For a moment his stare clenched the air between us, like a punch waiting to be thrown. He smiled though, apologized and offered me the second drink in his hand. I took it. His nameless smile and the taste of that drink are some of the last things I remember before coming to, in the old room, forgotten since Oscar's high school days, the rough polyester of a cheap blindfold pressing my eyelashes against my cheeks. Between the strange man's grunts, I could hear Oscar's voice searching for me, as he waited with his parents to introduce me in the driveway, three storeys below.

When I woke up in my bed this morning, all I could smell was the dust. I knew I needed to find that room again, to scrub last night out of this house.

Now, as the sun sets in golden slants across the floor, and as my head still rests in my palms, I'm not so sure I can. With every flashback of last night come other flashbacks from my life before meeting Oscar. No matter how far I tried to run, past cycles seemed to follow. Or maybe it's just that bad men exist everywhere and I have a tendency to let them hang around too long, let them off the hook too quickly, forgive and accept a token of apology, a drink too soon. Maybe I'd laughed too many times when I should have snarled, smiled when I should have snapped. Or maybe I should have gone and found Oscar instead of finding excuses for some weird guy's behaviour.

Every possibility rattles around my head until Oscar's voice makes me look up. Dusk has fallen and the room is soaked in twilight except for Oscar's shadow in the doorframe, backlit by a flickering light from the hallway. It takes me a moment to process his words. He repeats them: I found you.

Somehow I know he doesn't just mean in this moment.

He explains, "I brought you to bed... I'm so sorry."

Rage courses through me, "You didn't think to bring me to a hospital? To get a rape kit done? Maybe have some DNA taken?"

Oscar shakes his head. He tells me, "I saw who it was."

I ask, "Did you tell the police?"

He pulls me up into his arms and brings me to the window, streaky but clear of handprints. He points to the bed of roses far below the now dustless windowsill. Oscar’s old friend from football, the one who gave me the drink, waits for us to notice him. His body is crumpled and stiff among the thorns. I shiver. Oscar wraps his arms around me from behind. He asks, "Don't think. What do you feel?"

I tell him: safe.