Her hands, the knuckles cracked.

The clothes hanging off her.

The exhaustion sitting in her face like something that had settled in and made itself at home.

“Mom,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could.

“What is happening here?

Why are you cleaning like this?

Why did the man at the front door call you the maid?” She lowered her eyes.

She could not look at me, and that, more than the bucket or the brush or any of it, told me how bad it was, because my mother had never in her life been unable to look at me.