My son asked why my hands smell like bleach

Dear Delyara, My son is eight and lives with my mother in Sri Lanka. I clean hotel rooms here. During tonight’s video call, he pressed his face close to the screen and asked, “Amma, do your hands still smell like that strong soap?” I asked what he meant. He said when I visited last year, my hands smelled like the bathrooms at school. I laughed because I did not want him to see the sentence hurt. I wash my hands dozens of times a shift, but bleach settles into the cracks around my nails and stays there even after lotion, lemon, and hot water. My son remembers my smell as cleaning chemicals. Not jasmine oil. Not coconut from my hair. Not the curry leaves I used to crush between my fingers while cooking. Bleach. He showed me the gap where his front tooth fell out and said Grandma put it under his pillow. I told him the tooth fairy might get lost going to Sri Lanka. He laughed. After the call, I smelled my palms. They do smell like bleach. I scrub rooms so he can stay in school. I just never imagined the work would travel home before I did and become part of how my child remembers touching me.