The small A-frame house on the outskirts of Chicago sits quietly between two others with a gangway of two feet between them. The back alley hold kids playing on the rubbled ground, using metal garbage cans as goalposts. Errant cats roam amongst the alleyways searching for something to eat, chase or hide from.

On Thursdays I knew she was coming, just as she did every week. As a four-year old child, I didn't quite understand the passage of time and certainly didn't know what time it was at any given moment. But I knew it was Thursday.The little window at the landing of our stairs afforded me a glimpse of the world outside. I waited there. The neighborhood was quiet as the older kids were at school. She didn't drive so every car that happened to pass was simply a distraction from her arrival. She always approached from the right, so I kept my gaze accordingly.

There she came. Teadie Smith simply known as Teadie, our weekly cleaning lady. Popular amongst the neighbors, she also worked for us. I didn't see it as work, though. Teadie cleaned as if she had been doing her whole life; and I followed her around as she did.When she turned from the sidewalk to approach our house she set her sights on the window I occupied. Each time she did I could feel my smile emerge, my heart skip a beat, and my mind race with anticipation. She was here again, just like last Thursday.

My mother opened the door for her and they exchanged their pleasantries, sat down for a cup of coffee, and talked. I meandered around the table, listening to the chatter yet waiting for her to start cleaning. I wanted to follow her and talk with her, too. Every so often, she would spy my eye and her smile would capture me, letting me know she was almost ready to get to work.The adult talk stopped and it was my turn. Teadie stood up, ashen legs ending in her red, worn-out slip-on shoes. She walked to the pantry in the tiny enclosed back porch and took the bucket which held the cleaning supplies. I followed her and she told me to "Keep up". I grabbed the Windex and found a rag for her. She placed them in her bucket.“You should have seen the people on the “L” this morning, crowded I tell ya!” she said to me.

“What’s an “L”? I asked her, beaming at her voice.

“The train I take here, honey!” Teadie was a thin woman of African American descent. She walked with gait that kept her moving despite her old age.

“Choo, choo!” I exclaimed.

With a chuckle she corrected me, “No child, the train up high on the tracks; with the bridges your mama drives under!”

I watched her head move as she chortled with her thin black hair wrapped up in a full head bandana, tied in the back with an impossibly crafted perfect knot; and she placed her beat up purse, with jingling coins, that smelled of Wrigley's Doublemint gum, on the floor.

“Oh” I remembered sheepishly, “the ‘up-train’ that’s ‘lectric’”

“Yes…”She whisked past me and I caught her minty scent waft from her modest, free flowing cleaning dress which allowed her bony knees to move without hindrance. She slipped on slippers that were tattered and her black socks rode up her shin, one always lower than the other.

Her soft gaze and high cheekbones complimented her smile as she announced, "Time to get to cleaning. You comin'?"

I raised my eyebrows as I nodded "yes", waiting to see which room we would start with. As always, she glided to the kitchen, me in tow. We continued to talk while she effortlessly cleaned; keeping her meticulousness all the while. She tickled me in my stomach and I laughed. She sang. I listened, singing in my head alongside. Her dusting was smooth and meaningful; her Windex sprays met the glass with just enough force that she could wipe it without losing a drip. That smell of Windex, coupled with the gum, wafted past me as she set her sights on her next task. As she settled into her cleaning she reached into her side pocket and pulled out a crumpled Kleenex along with her single pack of the sweet smelling Doublemint gum. She wiped her mouth and took it across her nose as she breathed in slightly. Placing the scrunched up Kleenex back in her pocket, she used several bony fingers from both hands to unravel a piece of Wrigley's Doublemint Gum. The silver covering over the piece crinkled slightly as she removed it. She brought the wrapper to her nose and sniffed in with satisfaction; eyes closed. My body was still as I watched her place the gum in her open mouth, folding it on her tongue. Her soft eyes closed for a moment as she chewed the first chew. Placing the wrapper in her other pocket she drew her hand out and magically there was another stick of gum. It was for me.

In the first few months that I knew her she would help me unwrap the sweet treat. She'd then take the wrapper from me and place it with hers. As I tried to imitate the how she placed the gum in her mouth, she would smile and open her mouth, too, as if that would somehow help me curl it in. The gum sat softly on my tongue and with the first chew the flavor would seep out and fill my mouth and nose with a sharpness that felt soft; like her eyes. She smiled as I chewed again and she began chewing in sync. She would giggle a bit, turn from me, and proceed to clean and talk...keeping her gum secretly in her cheek.

A year passed and we moved from the south side of town to the northward in town. The house we bought was a classic Victorian with three times the number of rooms than the former. She followed us. I was not yet in kindergarten so I held the pleasure of waiting for her every Thursday still. This time, however, her stays were longer. We talked, giggled and chewed gum; and it all lasted longer for the sheer size of the house. When I started school, she started coming on Saturdays. The wafting scent of her gum became our shared pleasure as we tramped through the Victorian to each room, each window, and each crevice. Her knuckles were getting larger as she aged, her gait a bit more labored. She grew tired more often and we would sit, get a fresh piece, and have a chat about friends, teachers, and favorite things to do while I played with her cleaning rag.Four years passed. We moved again. This time our family ventured out of state. She did not follow. And when she came to the Victorian for the last time before we moved, she promised she would come and visit. I believed her. My chest felt funny and my thoughts drew a blank. She slipped me a whole pack of gum, took me by the hand and gazed at me with her brown eyes and perfect smile. "I promise" she whispered, "here, this is for you."

The move caused my family to begin to build a different kind of life. Thursday and Saturdays were different. I made new friends, found new neighbors, and was given new responsibilities. Saturday mornings were now dedicated to chores. The work we were given had to be done by noon...no questions. What I always thought about was how the cleaning would be so much easier if I could only chew gum.Less than one year flew by and Teadie made good on her promise. She visited our family for a week. We welcomed her; she and my mom chatted away each day she was there. I wanted to join yet had little to say. I sat comfortably on her lap as they conversed, feeling the vibrations of her voice as she spoke; feeling the motion of her as she laughed. She didn't clean although she wanted to. With just the two of us I showed her our new house. We looked at my toys and played school with my standing chalkboard; teaching each other made-up languages! We fished off our dock that stretched out over a channel of Lake Mcdill, bringing in Sunfish and releasing them back to freedom. We chewed gum after our meals as a sweet treat dessert. She moved slightly slower than I had remembered, and she kept an air of seriousness about her that was new to me. It was still Teadie, though; knobby knees and all.

The night before she left to go back to Chicago she sat on my bed. I stood by my play chalkboard. Dusk had settled itself through my window casting its light on the carpeted floor; Teadie looked at the light and we began talking. This conversation was unlike any other we had had. Her soft gaze hardened a bit and her cheekbones were not as prominent. She spoke with only a little giggle interspersed among her words. I listened. I wondered. I felt the comfort and security she was speaking of. "We've been together for eight years" she mentioned, "that's a long time, ya know."

For me it was my entire life. "Yeah, and you're still here, Teadie. Even when I'm far away."

"Of course I am. Our promises are meant for keeping, no matter how long it takes."

When she took her eyes off the light spread out on the floor, she reached into her pocket and brought out two pieces of gum. We chewed, remarking how tasty it was. Her old hand cupped my cheek and her soft eyes spoke of love. She left the next day.

Once again, we moved...back to the Chicago area. Teadie came to our house only a few times for the first months; then stopped. We wondered a bit and made some efforts to contact her; to come back and start cleaning again. She didn't respond. More time passed and my mother became worried. She called our former neighbors and they hadn't heard from her either.

Before too much time had passed my mother called me downstairs to the living room where she sat with her feet tucked under herself and the phone next to her. The Kleenex box was there, too...surrounded by several crumpled tissues. I approached her from behind and then produced myself in front of her. She broke the news of Teadie through red, teary eyes and shaking hand, fingers wringing.

Someone took Teadie's life.

They broke into her small Chicago apartment.

They left her in her last moments, suffering her death at their hands, in her bathtub.

I said nothing. My eyes twitched and my head compressed.

My shoulders collapsed under the weight of the news and I stepped away from my mother, turned, and walked up to my room.

I took a small couch pillow from my floor and placed it on the blue cast-iron radiator that perched under my bedroom windows. I grasped my knees to my chest and gazed through the glass; seeing the backyard and the detached garage adorned in the stucco that our house wore. The wind was still and the skinny branches of the trees against the gray clouds reminded me of Teadie's thinness.

My eyes grew dim. I tried not to see her but I did anyway. And time eluded me.

I sobbed in a way that I hadn't before. An eight-year old cry that felt like a rip through my existence, my soul.

When the wind picked up, I stopped crying.

I opened the window and smelled her in the air.

Doublemint gum.

She gave me, in childhood, a kind of care I would not understand until much later—steady, ordinary, and real.

From the Gallery

Some people leave a presence that returns long after they are gone, without asking permission.