Indelible Stain

Susan was scared of dishwashers. Not without reason. Her little brother had vanished into one. It happened many years ago, back when everyone called her Suzy or Sue, and nobody referred to her little brother as anything but Gray. Only Gray never grew up to be Grayson, the way she grew up to be Susan. He didn’t even have a headstone where the somber name Grayson could be engraved before the dates of birth and death. Nothing like that.

Gray disappeared one fine day, when the calendar still said May, but the weather felt like June. That was when Gray sank into the dishwasher. Only Suzy saw it happen, and only Suzy knew why. And only Suzy wasn’t taken seriously—by anyone. Not her parents, nor the police, nor the psychologist, and eventually not even by Suzy herself, as her doubts grew with each passing year.

This is how it happened. Gray came home from kindergarten, brought back by their mom. They had lunch—Susan remembers to this day that it was tomato soup—and afterward Mom tossed the dishes into the dishwasher and switched it on. At that time, Suzy wasn’t scared of dishwashers. Then someone called, and Mom had to step out. The two of them were left alone at the kitchen table, cleared of dishes except for two glasses of juice, because Mom believed in the power of juice.

“What do you have there?” Suzy asked her little brother, noticing that he was clutching something in his hand.

“A car. A race car,” he added after a moment, with obvious pride, setting a small red toy car on the table.

“Where did you get it?” she asked.

“I stole it from Petey.”

“You’ve sinned, and you’ll go to hell, ” Suzy said, staring at her brother with a mixture of horror and fascination.

Gray fell silent, driving the little car along the tabletop.

They finished their juice and obediently went to wash their hands at the kitchen sink. Gray, who of course was taller, turned on the faucet—and at that very moment, the door of the built-in dishwasher, in the cabinet to the left of the sink, swung open and her little brother vanished In a burst of scalding steam.

Suzy did not scream. She stood there staring at the now-closed dishwasher door, unable to understand. She only began screaming when she felt the cold and wetness at her feet. She was standing in an expanding puddle of water pouring over the edge of the clogged sink.

The first to rush in was Mrs. Pauline from the second floor. Her parents appeared later. Gray never appeared.

And now, after all these years, Susan had a dishwasher of her own. No, it wasn’t her idea. Stan had decided he was done washing dishes by hand and, without telling her, had bought a dishwasher. When she returned home from a two-day business trip, instead of the old cabinet for cleaning supplies, she was greeted by steel racks, plastic baskets, and spinning spray arms. The childhood nightmare was back . But she said nothing. She didn’t make a scene. Jack, their ten-year-old son, was just as proud of the new appliance as his father. She loved them both, after all.

Now she sat in the kitchen, eyes fixed on the dishwasher’s door. Jack had started a wash cycle before running off to play at a friend’s house. I wonder if Jack steals things, flashed through her mind. The gurgling sound of the machine drawing in water reminded her of huge cauldrons filling up. Bllllllllll, brrrrrrrr, bu-du-du-du, du-du-du , and then bllllllll again—more and more. Then came the clatter of the rotating arms, the not-arms, and the crash of water pouring down onto the world. And a hiss—a malevolent, ominous hiss—of steaming liquid. In her mind’s eye she saw cauldrons, enormous iron cauldrons standing on roaring fires, water within them bubbling up in white, billowing clouds of steam. And in those cauldrons…

She shuddered and shook the vision away. “It’s just a dishwasher. That never really happened,” she whispered to herself. She turned her gaze to the tabletop, the only piece of real wood in their apartment. And then she heard it.

“Su Zee , Su Zee, Su Zee.” “Su Zee, Su Zee, Su Zee.” Hiss and hum, and again: “Su Zee, Su Zee, Su Zee.”

A baby started crying in the apartment next door. Susan rose and left the kitchen, quietly closing the door behind her.