The Cleaners (Faraway Collection)

by Ken Liu

“Some people are much more sensitive than others. When I was little, your grandmother used to beat me with her hairbrush. Whenever I touched that hairbrush, I would scream. Felt like holding a scalding panhandle. But she brushed her hair with it until the day she died. Said she liked the tingle.”

It was hard to shop for Beatrice, who already had everything. But giving a gift mattered to Clara. It was a way for her to tell herself that she was still capable of giving, hadn’t made a mess of her life.

“Sorry.” Beatrice put away the phone and started on her salad. Maybe this is why she always gets a salad, Clara thought. So she doesn’t have to worry about the food getting cold.

“We all need to be reminded, from time to time, that we’re better than we remember,” Beatrice said.

You never wanted to know the people you liked and admired too well; it was impossible to reconcile what they wanted you to know with what they didn’t. Few people were better than they remembered.

“We all need to be reminded, from time to time, that we’re better than we remember.”