Beyond the Pain

Chapter 13

DURING THE FOLLOWINGWEEKS, I focused mostly on my job. I spent my weekday mornings cleaning the Evergreen people's bedrooms and their adjacent bathrooms in the afternoon. The evenings, I cleaned the dining room and the kitchen with Ash and Ben. They were a lot of fun, always cracking jokes, teasing each other and finding every reason to enjoy themselves. I liked spending time with them. When we were together, I felt like my old self again. I felt intact.

On the weekends, my assigned offices would be the object of my labor during the day. As for the evenings, it was the same as during the week.

I got used to the usual routine of the place. Every Cleaner had a set schedule, so I could safely guess where they were at any given time. The east wing ladies and Ash did the same job as me so, their daily routine mirrored mine. I would only see Nicole and Marta in passing, or while we were eating because the rest of the time, they were locked up in the east wing while Ash and I were locked up in the west wing.

Chef and Ben were in the kitchen all day, unless they were out grocery shopping. That was a perk that Cleaners earned after their mandatory five year 'probation period': going out to shop.

Marcus worked as the grounds' keeper, so he was only inside the mansion when it was time to eat, but I could often see him through the windows when he was outside. I wasted a few minutes every day watching him work and I wasn't the only one. I caught every single Cleaner looking at Marcus work at least once. Even Chef. Even though Marcus' work was physically demanding, he never complained and always gave his all.

Susan's schedule was a little less set in stone. She was mostly out of the mansion on Mondays, running errands. But the rest of the week, she was running errands inside the mansion for the Evergreen people, and her occupations during those days could vary. But she was still usually out of sight unless she was going from one office to another. No matter her work, she wouldn't let herself be bothered by any distraction while she diligently and blindly served her dear Evergreen people. Even if I had said hi to her during 'work time', she would have probably ignored me or urged me to get back to work, so I was pretty much invisible to her during the week, which I liked very much.

During the weekends, she must have been the one who was invisible to me, because I never saw her. Sometimes, she even skipped meal times for the whole day. She was there when we woke up, and she fell asleep in her bed every night, but I had no idea what she was up to during the day and neither did any other Cleaner.

When I asked them if they were curious about it, the consensus was that they didn't care.

"She's our boss," Marta said. "She doesn't need to tell us what she does with her time."

"She's a really busy woman," Nicole said.

"Who cares what she does," Ben said. "She's not policing us so I'm happy."

I also got accustomed to the usual whereabouts of the Evergreen people. Only a few of them ate in the dining room on a regular basis. Bastien, Francine, and Claire Smith spent almost every meal speaking quietly to each other, but they never sat at our table or talked to us. I once tried to eavesdrop on their conversation, but they only spoke French amongst themselves. The three of them were friendly enough by Evergreen people standards. They smiled at me if I ever accidentally made eye contact with them, but for the most part, they didn't pay much attention to me. Since they shared the same last name and looked like they were made from the same mold, I assumed they were related. Possibly cousins, but most likely siblings. That was the extent of the information I had gathered on them so far.

The other Evergreen people who ate in the dining room often were the four lawyers from the east wing. They looked and acted just like any snobby lawyer with a crushing superiority complex you might imagine. They would have most likely pretended not to see me even if I was dancing a jig in a clown costume two inches away from their faces.