Bathwater Blues: A Novel

by Abe Moss

  Maybe, Addie thought, her mother was… sorry. And forgiving. Maybe she’d left the door unlocked for Addie to come home, and that was that. They’d never speak of it again, like so many other fights they had.

  She stepped into her own room, flipped the light, threw her phone onto her bed. She sat next to it. She glanced at her mother’s door periodically, tempted to go to her, to apologize. Instead she grabbed her pajamas and took them into the bathroom down the hall. She washed up, brushed her teeth, changed. When she came out, she turned the light out in the kitchen and then headed back to her room. Before she closed herself in for the night, she paused next to her mother’s door and listened. Very faintly, music. The small radio her mother kept on her bathroom counter. That meant she was in the bath.

  She continued into her bedroom, closed the door. She reached to the turn the light off and caught her hand trembling. Sleep, she thought. She needed sleep, was all. She turned off the light and climbed into bed. The dark was quiet. She listened as late-night traffic came and went down their street. Things would be awkward in the morning, she knew. What if, she wondered, her mother had only forgotten to lock the door? Perhaps she was still unwanted. Her mother had, very forcefully, wanted her out of the house. Or perhaps everything would go back to the way it was. They might speak even less, which Addie thought was fine. As she lay in bed, feeling a little relieved to even be in it, she decided there were worse places she could be, worse people than her mother. It didn’t entirely wash away the hopelessness she felt, the self-loathing, but she knew sleep would provide that for a short while.

  She drifted off.

  ✽✽✽

  An hour of sleep at a time, that was all she could manage tonight, it seemed. Upon waking up, she immediately glanced at the clock to confirm it, and felt slightly annoyed. She needed to pee, maybe that was it. She climbed out of bed, rubbed the side of her head where a nasty headache developed while she slept. She stepped into the hallway, where she saw the light was still on in her mother’s room. Standing close, ear against the door, the music still played.

  What are you doing, mom…

  She used the bathroom. On her way back, holding herself as she made her way down the hall—her mother normally turned off the AC at night before bed—she stopped again at her mother’s door to listen. Hearing nothing at all but the faint music, she knocked. Waited. There was no response. She knocked again.

  “Mom?”

  Nothing. Not the splash of bathwater, or the rustle of clothes or feet on the carpet—nothing to indicate she’d been heard. An idea occurred to her, something her mind could only entertain for a fraction of a moment before pushing it away. It was too terrible. Too real, she thought. Heart pounding, she twisted the knob. She gently opened the door, revealing the dimly lit master bedroom within. It was spotless as usual, not an article of clothing to be seen, even in the empty laundry basket at the foot of her mother’s tidy bed. The bedside lamp was on, a glass of water beneath it, a prescription bottle of sleeping pills next to that, and Addie could see from the doorway that it still held the majority of her prescription.

  “Mom?” she said again, her mouth and throat dry as sand.

  She took a step into the bedroom. The adjoining master bathroom was lit, but the door was mostly shut. She went toward it, feet whispering on the carpet, and lifted her hand to push the door open. Her stomach churned. The door swept soundlessly open. There her mother was, in the bathtub. Her head was back, eyes closed. Relaxing.

  “Mom,” Addie spoke loudly, standing in the doorway.

  Her mother didn’t react. Her eyes were obscured by wet stringy hair. Her mouth hung open.

  She fell asleep in the tub.

  Fell asleep in the tub.

  Asleep in the tub.

  “Mom!” she shouted angrily, and shut off the radio on the counter. She went to the tub’s side. She stood above her, couldn’t see her naked body through the cloudy pink water. “Mom!”

  She bent and reached toward her mother, made to trace her hair behind her ear away from her eyes. Her fingers grazed the side of her face and she pulled back, like something had snapped at her fingers.

  Her skin was icy cold.

  “No, no, no,” she muttered.

  She knelt next to the tub. She plunged her hand into the water, found her mother’s, lifted it up, pulled it dripping from the bathwater, pink with cherry bubble bath. Except it wasn’t bubble bath at all. And the inside of the arm, dangling over the water’s surface, was opened down the middle, ragged, pruned white flesh on either side of the long wound. Addie dropped it back into the water with a splash and stumbled away, retreating to the doorway, gasping.

  She turned around, faced the bedroom, observed the made bed, the freshly vacuumed rug, the candles arranged in a perfectly spaced row on the dresser, and then wheeled back around to see her mother dead in the tub, leaning to one side now. She took a step toward the tub, then another step back, anxiously whipping her hands at her sides, vision blurred by what could only be the bottom of the barrel of her tears. She could only keep repeating the same thing over and over.

  “No. No, no, no. No…”

  She turned back into the bedroom and went to the phone on the nightstand. She picked it up, felt her fingers over the buttons, unable to see them. She wiped her eyes on her arm, and then pressed the ‘nine’. She glanced toward the bathroom door.

  What happens now…

  What happens now…

  She pressed the ‘one’.

  This shouldn’t be…

  This can’t be…

  She wiped her dripping nose. She looked toward the bathroom, the hand holding the receiver dropping slowly from her ear as she shook with short-of-breath sobs.

  I did this…

  I did this…

  Her finger hovered over the ‘one’ and she couldn’t bring herself to press it. It didn’t matter much, anyway, as the receiver was already slipping from her loose grasp. It made a soft sound on the carpet.

  She returned to the bathroom doorway and paused, for no other reason than to stare at the lifeless body in the bathtub. Feeling weak, she leaned against the doorjamb.

  “Why did you…” but she couldn’t finish, and she buried her face in her hands. She went to her mother’s bed and sat on its edge, sat hunched over her feet.

  Ruined everything…

  She jumped up, stomped into the bathroom, face blotchy and wet. She knew the right thing would be to call emergency services, but somehow that seemed like the worst thing …

  She sniffled, wiped her nose, and returned to her mother’s side.

  “I lied… I lied, you stupid bitch… I hate you. I fucking hate you…”

  She sat on the bathroom floor, back against the wall, and could only see her mother’s head above the lip of the tub, her sleeping eyes. She seethed with something like jealousy.

  You beat me to it…

  You should have found me, not the other way around…

  Then maybe…

  …maybe you’d have been sorry…

  After several minutes of soberly sitting in silence, Addie got to her feet and headed back into her mother’s bedroom. She went to the dresser, to the lamp, the prescription bottle underneath. She clutched it tight in a fist and took it into the bathroom.

  “This would make you happy, wouldn’t it?” she asked the dead body. “If I killed myself over you.” The dead body didn’t respond. “I bet… I bet you’d find a way to make it about you, wouldn’t you? Your tragedy, not mine. Poor you. Boo-fuckin’-hoo, right? You probably want me to think this is my fault. Like I did this to you. You did this knowing I’d find you. Like this is the worst thing that could happen to me. You mean nothing to me. You… you did this for nothing.”

  She stood fuming, setting her own dead eyes on her mother’s, almost genuinely expecting an answer. She pictured her mother earlier in the kitchen, when she was broken and crumbling into herself, falling apart before her. She’d liked that, what she could do wi
th just her words. But this was something else. She never wanted this. Not truly.

  Brief half-thoughts fluttered through her mind. She wished she was dreaming, that she could wake up, maybe on Carter’s couch two nights ago. She could change everything that way. She could be quiet for Carter. She could be less needy for him. She could turn Sam down, or better yet she could excuse herself from ever sitting with Jessica in the first place. She could quietly accept her mother’s truths, no matter how cruel. But time didn’t turn back for anyone. Carter was gone. Sam was gone. Her mother was gone. She thought with a sad clarity, standing at the tub’s edge over her mother’s soaking corpse, that she was as good as gone too. She felt she’d been hollowed out somehow. Carter and the sex, her mother and the bizarre, caustic company she provided, the familiarity, it had all been a sort of blindfold she wore, a fog she chose to hide herself in, or rather hide everything around her, and now it was stripped from her and she saw how desolate and meaningless her life really was. It was laughably histrionic, she was aware, but it was what she felt, and she didn’t think her self-pity invalidated any of it.

  “If you’re listening,” she began, turning her attention back on her mother’s body, “this has nothing to do with you. I have reason enough without giving you a single thought. I’m not weak like you think.”

  She set the bottle of sleeping pills on the counter next to the sink. She stood at the tub’s side, searched its lip all around for the blade but couldn’t find it. She bent down and dipped her hand into the blood-water and felt around the bottom of the tub along her mother’s side, dancing her fingers along until they tapped what they were searching for. She pinched it carefully and brought it out of the bathtub.

  It was just a simple razorblade, but her body was seized by a sour pang at just the sight of it, a twinge of anticipation. Knowing what it’d been used for previously somehow made what she was about to do even worse.

  Her mother’s flesh hadn’t dulled it any, she was sure.

  “You think I’m weak…”

  She plopped her arm on top of the bathroom counter, hunched slightly over it, and brought the blade toward her wrist. She knew her mother had done it right. She knew the warm water in the tub bled you out faster. Doing it this way would take longer, and she’d have to cut deeper. She’d also make a bigger mess, but that was the least of her problems, wasn’t it?

  “Ah, fuck,” she gasped, and tossed the blade back into the bathwater.

  She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stand the sight of blood, especially her own, and there was no way in hell she could open herself up like that. She didn’t know how anyone could, even her mother. There were much better ways of killing oneself, she thought. She knew her mother had done it her way for the scene. But Addie was less vain. Living was shitty enough, she didn’t need to suffer through death too.

  She picked the bottle of sleeping pills back up from the counter, skimmed the label as quickly as she could. She’d heard horror stories about failed sedative overdose. You woke up with severe stomach pain, followed by puking your guts out. It could go on for what felt like ages, your head feeling fit to burst all the while. She would have to be more careful than that.

  She set the bottle down and left into her mother’s bedroom, out into the dark hallway, following it hastily, her mind oddly focused and quiet, and finally arrived in the kitchen. She flipped the light on. On the other side of the room, next to the stove, was a very specific lower cupboard. She went to it, opened it up, and was greeted by a variety of glass bottles, some small, some tall, some gold, some brown, some clear. She retrieved a bottle of vodka. As quickly as she’d come, she fled back down the hall and into her mother’s bedroom, into her mother’s bathroom, where she set the bottle next to the sleeping pills.

  “If I do this right,” she said aloud, talking to herself and her mother, “it should be painless. Like anesthesia, I think.”

  She was surprised to not be crying at this point. She didn’t feel afraid, or reluctant. In fact, there was almost an instant of excitement, or rather an intense feeling of desire, a longing for what she knew would be almost-immediate relief. It’d been so long since she’d experienced anything good, the notion of not having to experience the bad anymore caused her to fumble her fingers as she undid the cap on the prescription bottle.

  She looked over her shoulder once, at the cold corpse not paying her any mind, and briefly hoped her mother wouldn’t be waiting for her on the other side, if there was an ‘other side.’

  She took the pills and the vodka with her into the bedroom and closed the bathroom door behind her. She sat on her mother’s bed. The clock on the dresser read 12:42 a.m.

  She dumped a couple caplets into the palm of her hand, brought them to her lips, pressed her tongue against their tasteless, smooth shapes, tasting the salt of her own skin, and took them in her mouth. Then she took the cap off the bottle of vodka, tipped it to her lips as well. She downed the pills with a couple swallows, and then took a couple more swallows for good measure. She’d do this multiple times over the course of the next hour, she thought, or however long it took to knock her out.

  She thought very clearly then about how she wouldn’t be waking up after this, about how this nap would be a permanent one. That frightened her a little. Her decision was still final, she thought, but she couldn’t help thinking now of what she might possibly be missing. What if she chose to live, and tomorrow something really great and unexpected happened? She flirted with the idea that maybe the universe would reward her choice to persevere by finally turning her luck around. But it didn’t work like that. The universe didn’t pay attention to itself or the things within it. Things moved and changed on a series of tracks, crossing and bending and affecting each other at random depending on happenstance. There would always be a chance for something miraculous or good to come along, but it hadn’t come yet, and Addie didn’t want to spend any longer waiting. She could be done now. Just poof. Gone.

  She waited fifteen minutes and took a couple more pills, washing them down with more alcohol. She thought she felt a little sick, but it was such a mild feeling, she wasn’t sure if she imagined it or not. Her stomach was warm and her head felt pleasantly light already. Five minutes later, the clock reading 1:02 a.m., feeling a little less hopeful, a little less sure of herself, a little more impatient, she dumped a couple more pills into her hand. She brought them to her mouth, lips parted lazily, and—

  !!!

  A sudden, rocking crash startled her upright. The pills in her hand fell to the floor, along with the open bottle of vodka, making repetitious gulping sounds as it emptied into the carpet.

  She must have jumped six inches off the bed. “What…”

  The house was quiet, seemingly more so after the sudden disturbance. To Addie, it had sounded like the front door was thrown off its hinges. She drifted clumsily to the bedroom door, the floor sliding underneath her like standing on a floating sheet of ice, and stood cautiously in the doorway. The hallway was empty, everything quiet as ever. The light was still on in the kitchen. She wondered if she’d mistaken a sound outside for being inside. Perhaps someone dropped something in their driveway, or maybe there’d been a late night, drunken fender bender. But that wasn’t it. As woozy as she felt, she knew the sound had come from inside, loud and clear. It was close.

  She took soft steps toward the foyer, hand on the wall for stability. The walls tottered. The light from the kitchen sparkled fuzzily. Such a lightweight… She turned the corner at the hallway’s end. The night breathed its cool air inside through the wide-open front door. She could hear the crickets at the porch, chirping madly. She went to the door and peered outside.

  The lawn was silver in the bright moonlight, the sidewalks chalk-white. There weren’t any cars in sight, not even the sound of tires on the road. No sound at all, save for the twittering insects and the barely audible rustle of leaves in the trees. She took a deep breath and burped, vomiting a little in her mouth, tasting the bitter bile m
ixed with the alcohol. The fragrant breeze felt immensely refreshing on her sweaty face and neck. She stood in the doorway, forgetting all about the previous commotion, simply taking in the serenity of the late night and its aliveness. Whatever had caused the door to blow in was gone now anyway, it seemed.

  A couple minutes later she remembered her planned appointment with death, and finally stepped back and closed the door, sealing out the spellbinding draw of the after-dark suburbs. She considered locking the door, turning the bolt, but decided to leave it unlocked after all. It would make it easier on whoever turned up looking for them…

  She paused with her fingers on the deadbolt latch.

  Who would find them? she wondered. How long would that take? Her boss might call when she didn’t show up at noon, but what then? If she wasn’t there to answer, would her boss really care? Probably not. She’d figure her for a quitter, was all. Plenty of cashiers did that. It was more common than any two weeks’ notice—to simply stop showing up. So then… who would it be? The only other person she could imagine coming was Carter, and that didn’t seem likely. He was probably overjoyed at never having to see her again. Her mother, on the other hand, seemed to have even less prospects. She had no visitors, no employer, no close family. It was highly probable—almost definite, Addie thought—that her mother would sit in that bathtub, and she on her mother’s bed, for weeks. Maybe even months. It was an unsettling notion.

  She needed to get it over with already.

  She turned from the front door toward the kitchen, intent on turning out the light and possibly grabbing another bottle of something to finish off the pills, seeing as the vodka was now spilled, and was halted by the sight of something standing in the kitchen entryway.

  She recoiled in terror. Her whole body tensed so rigidly, so immediately, she lost what little balance she possessed and shuffled backward on her heels until she met the door against her back. Even then she pressed into it, wished to fall through, away from the… the…