Bathwater Blues: A Novel

by Abe Moss

  ✽✽✽

  I killed her. It was me. Why did I lie?

  She tossed and turned, twisting her sheets as the guilt twisted her insides, and couldn’t find a satisfying answer. The real answer was as ugly as it was true. She couldn’t escape it.

  “Don’t let it be that,” she muttered, sleep just barely out of reach. She turned over once more, burying her face against her pillow and breathing in its flowery scent deep and full. “Don’t let me be hateful like her.”

  ✽✽✽

  Much later in the night, still awake, Addie heard a door open nearby. She got out of bed and went to her door and listened. There were footsteps, gentle but audible. She carefully opened her door and peeked out into the dark hall. Nothing. Then another door opened, this time the front door, recognizable in the sound of its heft. She tiptoed out of her room and down the hall, passing Joanna’s now-open door on the way, and paused at the archway to the parlor. She stuck her head out, squinting.

  Joanna stood in the entrance. The night’s breeze whispered in. Addie watched perfectly still, Joanna just a block of shadow in the pale light. She turned her head back and forth, surveying the yard outside. Could she really already be planning another escape, Addie wondered? Then Joanna took a step back and shut the door. Addie retreated out of sight. When she heard Joanna’s footsteps returning toward the hall, she hurried back to her room, slinked inside, and closed her door without a sound. She listened. Joanna’s door shut. The springs of her cot cried out as she must have climbed back in. Whatever she’d been considering, she’d decided against it for now.

  Addie returned to her bed. She pulled her blanket around her shoulders and lay facing the room, eyes closed. Suddenly her mind was weary and blank. She fell soundly to sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning started with the sound of dishes and the smell of warm breakfast. Addie got out of bed, and as she did she took notice of her own smell. It was old and sour and deep, like a damp washcloth soaked with something spilled and left to dry in a dusty corner. She figured she couldn’t be worse than the others, at least, and left to the kitchen.

  She found the table set with plates of eggs and bacon and toast, and Nuala at the counter scrubbing a pan in a bucket of water in the sink, dressed in yet another sundress, this one a chocolate brown. She brightened at the sight of Addie.

  “Have a seat,” she said.

  Bud was out next, almost as soon as Addie took her place at the table. Nuala greeted him. He looked between the food on the table and Addie sitting at one corner, and took a seat at the other end. Addie wondered if he resented her, or if perhaps he only thought she might still resent him and avoided intruding further somehow. Neither of them started on their meals until Nuala stood next to them, peering toward the hallway and waiting for the other two.

  “Joanna might be a late sleeper,” she said. “Lyle… I don’t know…” She shrugged. “No reason you two can’t eat, though. Go ahead.”

  Addie and Bud were halfway finished by the time Joanna came stomping out of the hallway like a sleepy giant, rubbing her tired eyes.

  “I liked the food under the door better,” she said as she took her seat, not glancing at any of them. “I hate ‘breakfast talk’.”

  “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Nuala said, and couldn’t have looked happier.

  Nuala watched them as they ate, like she expected someone to say something interesting any moment. But no one did. They ate with their heads down.

  “This is fine,” she said quietly to herself. “This is good… I understand we can’t all be friends so quickly. No, that takes time…”

  Enjoying her food, and suddenly guilty for it, Addie said, “Thank you for breakfast.” She flicked her eyes up just fast enough to see Nuala beaming.

  “Of course! I keep meals simple so that hopefully everyone can enjoy it. I… only wish Lyle might join us too…”

  “You sure he’s still here?” Joanna said, a chuckle rising in her throat. “I bet he’s long gone already. Probably having breakfast with the wolves by now.”

  Nuala’s smile vanished. “He’s here. I know because I checked before I started breakfast, and he’s still in bed sleeping.”

  Joanna rolled her eyes. “I was joking…”

  They finished their breakfast in silence. Nuala left to check on Lyle, and returned to confirm he was still sleeping. Only sleeping.

  “So where’s the shower around here?” Joanna asked, pulling her shirt away from her chest and grimacing. “You do have a shower, right?”

  “No!” Nuala cheered, and the three of them regarded her with dread. “No, bathing will be done outside.”

  Addie recalled the pond she’d seen the previous night and the bathtub at its edge. Surely Nuala wasn’t referring to that…

  “You don’t mean that ancient tub rotting out there by that nasty pond, right?” Joanna asked. “There’s no way I’m climbing in that.”

  “Oh, no,” Nuala answered. “No, that tub isn’t suitable for bathing.”

  “What’s it doing out there, anyway?” Addie said, and fidgeted when Bud and Joanna both turned their attention on her to listen.

  “It’s always been here,” she answered simply. Then, quickly changing the subject, she said, “As for bathing, if you so desire, you can fill up one of the buckets by the pump in the yard and use a washcloth outside.”

  “You mean strip naked in broad daylight for everyone to see?” Joanna looked appalled. “Are you kidding?”

  Nuala smirked. “I never said you had to bathe. You asked where you could, and that’s my answer. I’m not at all bothered by your odor, if that’s what you’re worried about. You get used to it rather quickly.”

  Addie drew her eyes along Nuala’s slender body, and the squeaky clean glow of her pale skin, and knew it was unlikely that she never bathed. She wondered if there might be a bath in the main house reserved only for the doctor and herself.

  “So,” Nuala began, swiveling her waist from left to right as she spoke, like a sweet child. “The doctor, feeling we should spend more time getting comfortable with one another before moving on to the more rigorous treatment, has left today’s activity up to me. I have two ideas, however, and was hoping you might pick between them.”

  “What all could there possibly be to do here?” Joanna asked.

  “You see, and that’s the thing…” Nuala took a seat with them now, sitting in the empty fourth chair where Lyle was likely meant to sit. “The things I have in mind are less about entertainment, and more about keeping your minds on something productive.”

  “You’re giving us chores,” Joanna spoke dryly. She sank back into her chair.

  “It doesn’t have to be a chore if you don’t let it.”

  “What are the choices?” Addie asked.

  “All right, here’s what I came up with. The guesthouse has been in need of a fresh coat of paint for a while now—”

  “Pass,” Joanna interrupted.

  Addie, observing Joanna sitting across the table with her thick arms folded over her belly, briefly thought how strange it was that she could be so brash and impolite one moment, and pleading fearfully like a cornered animal the next. It seemed nothing that happened the previous night had any real effect on her attitude.

  “You might like the other option even less,” Nuala warned.

  “What is it, then?”

  “I’ve got some logs that need splitting for firewood. It’s not easy, but it’s good exercise.”

  Joanna gestured to herself. “Do I look interested in exercise?”

  “Painting it is, then!” Nuala clapped her hands together. “That was easy. I’ll let you get your dishes picked up and in the sink. When that’s done, meet me out in the yard.”

  Addie and Bud did as they were told, taking their plates to the sink where they rinsed them using the bucket of water there. Joanna, however, disappeared into her bedroom, leaving her dishes on the table. Bud finished his dishes fir
st, and left outside. Addie finished soon after and followed after him.

  Stepping outside, the day already hot, she wondered how long she could last in it. Nuala was across the clearing, chucking logs from the pickup truck onto the dirt. One after the other, Bud and Addie approached her there, shielding their eyes from the sun as they watched her work. She smiled as she noticed them.

  “No Joanna, I presume?”

  They both shook their heads. Nuala shrugged.

  “So…” She jumped down from the bed of the truck and swept her hands together. “Do either of you want to start over here, or are you both decided on painting instead?”

  “I’d rather paint,” Bud said.

  “Me too.” Addie answered. Bud watched her with an incredulous arch to his brow. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing.”

  Nuala appeared deliciously delighted by their interaction. After a pause, she moved between them and headed toward the guesthouse.

  “I have some of the paint set in the shade over here. I figured you’d want to start there first, and move ‘round as the sun crosses over.”

  They stopped where the two buckets sat, their lids peeled off. The creamy white paint reminded Addie of frosting on a cinnamon roll. The scent was strong, enough to make her recoil. It reminded her of something as well—something unpleasant—but couldn’t place it. She hadn’t smelled fresh paint in… well, maybe never. There were four broad brushes sat next to the buckets, presumably for each of them. Two stepstools waited near the house’s rear.

  “Either of you painted a house before?”

  “I helped my dad repaint our house’s interior a couple years ago…” Bud said.

  “Excellent!” Nuala offered him a brush. “How about you, Adelaide?”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s not difficult. And this little old guesthouse doesn’t need to be perfect. On a house like this, it’s best to paint from side to side along each board. Like this.” She moved a dry brush along the faded clapboard siding, left to right beneath the lip of the above board. “There’s plenty of paint, so don’t worry about that. This is more just an activity I thought might bring the four of you together…”

  She chewed her lip and stamped her foot in the trimmed grass, clearly disappointed by the turnout.

  “Are you sure Lyle is okay?” Addie asked.

  “He’s being stubborn, is all,” Nuala said. “Trust me. I’ve seen it before. He thinks if he can’t be dead, he’ll just as well pretend. Not uncommon. I wouldn’t worry about him if I were you.”

  She fetched one of the stepstools.

  “I suggest one of you starts at the top and the other at the bottom. Meet in the middle. Of course, you don’t need to work alongside each other if you don’t want.”

  Addie and Bud regarded one another, saying nothing.

  “I’ll be chopping wood if either of you need me,” Nuala said, and left them alone.

  Addie sighed. “Where do you want to start?

  Bud, feeling rather untalkative, grabbed the stepstool and started near the other end of the house. Taking the hint, Addie grabbed the second stepstool and got to work.

  Painting was a great deal more relaxing than she anticipated—kneeling in the grass, shaded from the sun but not a stranger to its warmth, the odd dribble of cold paint on her wrists, smelling the old wood. Nearly an hour passed that way. Every now and then she stole glances at Bud, who painted rather forcefully in comparison. Several times she thought of things to say but kept her tongue still. It seemed every time she peeked his way, his face was twisting closer to tears. Somehow it was her fault, she realized, and eventually she couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  “I’m sorry about everything,” she said. She dipped her brush into her bucket and could scarcely bring herself to see if he paid her any attention. “I’m sorry about… what I said that night.”

  Bud scoffed. When Addie looked, his back was to her, bent over his own bucket.

  “I don’t care about that,” he said.

  “It’s just… I feel like it’s partly my fault—”

  He dropped his brush in the grass, whirled toward her, arm raised to rub his face, and rushed past her into the yard.

  “—damn allergies…” she thought she heard him say, though his voice was obviously choked.

  He crossed the yard to the pump. Nuala wasn’t much farther off, setting a log up on a cutting block. Bud pumped water, drank some, and splashed water on his face. Nuala spoke to him, but Addie couldn’t hear what they said.

  It had to be something she did. Usually she meant to be an asshole, but sometimes the habit crept through in unintended places.

  She thought back to that night, outside Carter’s apartment complex. He was nameless then—just a pretty boy she’d caught in Carter’s bed…

  She groaned, hating her mind for retreading old thoughts.

  Fuck Carter.

  She leaned back against the house, her brush in the grass, and bent with her hands propped on her knees. She breathed, feeling a lump climbing into her throat. She turned her head to spy on Bud and Nuala and found them standing together next to the pump. Bud’s head was down, his hands jammed in the pockets of his pajamas, and Nuala rested a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. She vaguely remembered the way Bud had scrambled for his clothes on the floor, amidst the outpouring of Carter’s panic and her own accusatory confusion and hurt. He was nobody to her then. Just an object of betrayal…

  They were all here for the same reason. One specific reason, with their own different reasons behind it. Addie continued watching as Nuala stroked his back, lips moving, likely whispering words of reassurance, and it occurred to Addie that she may have been his reason…

  It appeared she had a knack for pushing people over the edge.

  First Bud.

  And then her mother.

  Her eyes welled up and she stumbled toward the house’s rear, wishing to be out of sight before they overflowed. She rounded the corner, continued along the back until the sobs clenched her gut, and she dropped into the grass. She cried quietly. She shielded her face from the warming sun, and the sobs splashed up like waves, rolling and then crashing, seizing her and stealing her breath.

  Sometimes she wondered if she might enjoy hating herself. It provided easy answers to the whys of her problems. It gave her something clear to focus her blame on, and it always made sense. She thought—

  Something fell on her head—small and light, she felt it in her hair—and when she looked toward the roof she saw a dark shape pull into the window above her. She stood, stepped away from the house into the grass. It was the second window from the right—the third room from her own inside.

  “Lyle?” she asked, her voice stuffy from her tears. She felt the top of her head again and dredged a small piece of glass from her hair, a little fragment from Lyle’s broken window.

  Something rustled off to her right. Nuala stepped around the corner of the house.

  “There you are!” she said. “I thought maybe I’d lost you again…” She observed the house which Addie faced, the broken window, and must have thought she understood. “He’ll come around, in his own time. I wouldn’t worry too much.”

  Addie walked past Nuala without a word, back to her paint brush in the grass. She picked it up and resumed where she left off.

  “Looking good,” Nuala said. Addie sighed, wishing Nuala would go back to her wood chopping and leave her alone. The smell of paint was harsh. “You feeling all right, Adelaide?”

  “Yes. Fine.”

  Addie waited a few minutes before looking over her shoulder to see where Nuala was, and saw no sight of her. Bud was also gone.

  She painted alone then, another hour altogether, and nearly finished her side. The sun was starting its slow descent into the west. Her stomach growled, and she knew it must be well past lunchtime.

  Returning into the guesthouse, she found Nuala in the kitchen preparing sandwiches and her stomach nearly barked.
/>   “Hungry yet?” Nuala asked. “I thought you might be.”

  “Where is everyone else?” Addie asked.

  “Well… Joanna is still in her room, stubborn as ever. Lyle is just the same. I think if either of them could warm up to the place, they’d get along quite well.”

  “And Bud?”

  Nuala bent over the platter of sandwiches and, drawing a knife down their centers, turned her eyes slyly up at Addie, that familiar grin creeping through.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d say the two of you know each other. Is that true?”

  Addie stood at the table, holding the back of a chair as she thought of something to say. She wondered if any answer might be pointless, as Nuala likely already knew the truth.

  “Don’t you already know?”

  Nuala licked mayonnaise from her thumb. “Why should I ask, if I already know?”

  Addie joined her at the counter then, appreciating the sight of the platter full of sandwich halves. Tuna sandwiches. She sucked her lips hungrily.

  “When are you going to tell us the truth? Why we’re really here.”

  “I already told you.”

  “I don’t think it can just be a coincidence that Bud and I are here. I saw the way you looked at us last night…” She paused. “You were the one following me, I know. You knew where I lived. You knew where Carter lived. You followed me to the cemetery that night.”

  Nuala said nothing, but her smile never faltered.

  “We’re four people who all tried the same thing, and you knew it before any of us did.”

  Nuala set the knife down, regarded her sandwiches with pride, and then lifted the platter up off the counter.

  “I hope you’re very hun—”

  “No,” Addie whispered angrily, not wanting to draw the others from their rooms with her voice. “Tell me what the fuck I’m doing here already. I deserve to know.”

  Nuala set the platter down again on the counter. “Would an answer to these questions really answer anything at all? You’re here, and that’s all that matters. If you weren’t, why… you wouldn’t be anywhere. Don’t you realize that?”