This is how you do it, the mom says. She lifts out the lettuce,

the half red pepper with seeds spilling out. She pulls the ketchup, the

plum sauce, the jar of harissa from the door. Condiments and plastic containers of leftovers accumulate on the counter like a miniature

food city.

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          Watch, she says. She lifts the glass shelf out from its hooks, dunks it into the soapy sink. Things spill, she says, and collect on this lip. She tilts the shelf toward her daughter, shows her the sticky oval button

of what? syrup? soy sauce? viscous blood leaked from a tray of chicken thighs? You’ve got to scrape it off, she says, and demonstrates with

the plastic edge of a dish scrubber. When that doesn’t work, she uses her fingernail.

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          ’Kay, the daughter says. She slouches, her shoulders forward, her thin tank clinging and rising above her jeans. Her body says who cares but her eyes are watching everything her mom is doing, her mind recording everything her mom is saying.

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Who knows how long that was there, the mom says. Should’ve done

this sooner.

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Uh huh, the daughter says.

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Okay, you try the next one, the mom says.

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The daughter goes to the next shelf, lifts and unhooks it, slides it out along the track and then, when the full weight is on her arms she staggers a bit, tilts the shelf. The mom grabs the end before it hits

the floor.

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Careful, the mom says.

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It’s heavier than I thought, the daughter says. You don’t think about it, sitting there, holding up the milk and the eggs, the leftover potato salad and one shriveled sausage from yesterday’s grill. The daughter bends over the sink.

​

The mom watches her daughter soap the shelf, the same circular pattern she used, the same scraping of the same gunk. She wonders if her daughter is done growing, or if she’ll have a two-inch growth spurt in a couple years, the way she herself did. She wonders if her daughter

will be taller than she is. She wonders if she’ll get to know the answer

to that.

​

Next, when they are done with the shelves, she will show her daughter how to bring the warm soapy cloth to the white shelf-less cavern of the fridge. How to inspect every crevice, to follow up with a dry cloth, give it a sheen. They’ll put the food back, wipe down the condiments so they seem new.

​

Later that day, when the mom is under the eye of an ultrasound, she will breathe softly in and out, she won’t flinch when the biopsy needle goes in. She’ll sit with creased eyes when the radiologist, and then the doctor comes to discuss next steps. Later, when she digs through the freezer for an icepack, she will find thick brownish drips frozen to the white wire shelves. She will think she forgot to show her daughter when she had the chance that this, too, was part of the fridge.