Bathwater Blues: A Novel

by Abe Moss

  “I hope he gets somewhere,” Joanna murmured, experiencing a surprising change of heart.

  Addie nodded without hesitation, and it occurred to her with frightening suddenness how badly she wanted to go with him, or at the very least hoped he would come back with help should his warnings prove valid. Maybe all along they’d privately held on to that hope of escape. It was only when it seemed impossible that they forced themselves to believe otherwise…

  Just then the doctor’s front door opened. Lyle halted. He was halfway there. The doctor emerged onto the porch, stood strong and still like a great bear under the porch awning, and Nuala followed closely behind. The three of them—the doctor, Nuala, and Lyle—faced each other without a word, waiting for the other to make their move.

  “Lyle, you should be resting,” Nuala spoke over the doctor’s shoulder.

  Lyle didn’t respond. He stood strong as well, or so it appeared. It was hard to tell in the passing shadows of the clouds whether or not he shivered. Perhaps he was frozen in terror.

  “Come back inside and we’ll pretend like it never happened. Give us back the keys.”

  “Why should you care?” Lyle said. “If there’s nothing out there for us, I won’t get far. You should want this to happen. It’ll help you better develop my recovery plan. Maybe I’ll change my mind at the end of the field there. You don’t know. It should be interesting for you to wait and find out.”

  “We can’t protect you out there,” Nuala said. “But at least if you’re here, we can help.”

  They stood for only a few seconds more, a few seconds which twisted tighter and tighter like an elastic band nearing its breaking point. Addie thought they’d stand there forever in a stalemate, expected those few seconds to stretch on into eternity. But the band snapped.

  Lyle flashed to the right, lost his footing, fell to his hands on the dirt, feet still running, picked himself up in an instant, and fled across the yard toward the field beyond the fire pit and the outhouse. Nuala slipped around the doctor and hurried down the porch steps after him.

  “Lyle!” she called.

  Not wanting to lose sight of him, Addie followed after them both. She jogged past the fire pit, skirted the edge of the outhouse, and slid to a stop at the field. She squinted through the shifting dark. Lyle was still ahead, only his bouncing upper body visible above the long grass, getting smaller with distance. Nuala was quick, however. She’d catch him inevitably.

  They’re going to kill us.

  Addie chased into the grass after them. Nothing would happen on her watch, she thought. Nuala couldn’t hurt him, not in front of her. She wouldn’t dare. Only minutes ago, Addie would have denied the possibility that Nuala would hurt any of them, but now, for reasons she couldn’t understand yet, it seemed all too plausible. She was even less sure why she wanted to protect Lyle from her of all people, but she did. She tore through the grass with her bare legs, felt it lash her back likewise. She was faster than Lyle, but Nuala was faster than them both.

  “Lyle!” Nuala called again.

  Nuala gave a cursory glance over her shoulder as she ran and her eyes widened at the sight of Addie. Her expression turned to a scowl.

  “Go back! You’re not helping anything!”

  Addie didn’t slow. Lyle pushed forward with all the speed of a winded couch potato. Nuala turned her attention ahead again, legs swift like pistons, and it was just then that Lyle pitched forward into the grass with a shrill yelp.

  “Lyle!”

  What followed—as though Addie didn’t have enough keeping her up at night—would haunt her for the rest of her life.

  A red geyser sprayed into the air, wet and glittery. Addie braked, rolled to a stop on her dirtied heels as warm droplets stippled her face. Jaw dropped, she tasted it. Metallic. Sharp. The plume of blood rose like a swarm of bees, until finally it pattered down like rain and left a fine, warm pink mist above the grass.

  Addie stayed behind while Nuala hurried ahead. The mist settled like sawdust, and Addie thought with horrifying clarity that it was Lyle she saw suspended in the air, thousands of tiny bits of him. Nuala entered into it slowly and peered into the grass. Her shoulders sagged. Without much thought, Addie continued toward her. She approached the spot where Nuala watched, heart aflutter, shaking through her ankles. The grass brushed her fingers, streaked her forearms with something wet and warm from the blades’ edges. She stopped when she saw the beginning of it, almost turned back. She stepped on something wet and spongy in the grass. She took another step. Then another. When the whole of it revealed itself, a porcelain lion in the grass, she fought to keep from sinking to the ground.

  The bathtub glistened in its usual way, swords of moonlight along its edges, and it glistened in a new way as well. The inside was completely coated, like it’d been filled with paint and drained out from the bottom. Shreds of bloody cloth hung over the rim. Addie leaned just far enough to glimpse an unidentifiable lump resting inside.

  A human log.

  Dizziness struck her like a gale of wind. She swayed, stumbled. Her foot touched something else in the grass and her eyes darted toward it, saw it hidden next to her toes in the dirt.

  Two fingers lay side by side, severed through bone and all.

  Finally she screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  After she’d stirred it thoroughly, Nuala poured a glass of lemonade and offered it to Addie at the kitchen table. Addie accepted it but didn’t drink.

  “I know you must have a lot on your mind,” Nuala said, and took a seat next to Addie. “It’s important you talk to me. You can’t keep this all bottled up.”

  “I don’t want to talk,” Addie said. “I just want to think. By myself.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “It’s none of your business. My thoughts are my own. I just want to be left alone. I need to think.”

  Nuala wouldn’t relent. All that following day she hung around the guesthouse, cleaning this and dusting that, flipping cushions on the sofas, wiping windows and sweeping the floor. Cleaning wasn’t her actual goal, however. Cleaning offered an excuse to search, Addie knew.

  “What happens to him now?” Joanna asked at lunch. “We just forget he was ever here? No one knows what happened to him? His family?”

  “None of that is any of your concern,” Nuala said. “Your treatment will continue normally. The doctor hasn’t forgotten about any of you.”

  Joanna pestered Addie about it all afternoon, begging her to tell her what she saw. Addie assured her she didn’t want to know. Joanna insisted.

  “Let’s just say I’m never setting foot in that bathtub again.” Addie left her answer at that.

  When they were finally alone that night after supper, Joanna approached Addie in her bedroom. She sat on the edge of her bed while Addie lay with her head turned toward the wall. She eyed Joanna irritably.

  “Where did you put them?” Joanna asked.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “What do you mean don’t worry about it? I’m part of this too.”

  “You shouldn’t know. It’s better that way.”

  “You think I’ll tell?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I wouldn’t say anything. You know I wouldn’t.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “If something happens to you, I should know where they are. Just in case.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to me. Not yet.”

  “What are you keeping them for? What are you going to do with them?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She thought for a minute. “I’ll wait and see what the doctor wants from me next. There’s still a chance Lyle was wrong. He was crazy, after all.”

  After a quiet moment: “So is it really true? The tub killed him?”

  “It looked that way, yes.”

  “How?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  ✽✽✽

  Late at night she sat in bed with t
he keys in her hands. The sky was clouded, the moon hidden, and in her dark room there were only brief glimpses of shiny copper as she turned the individual keys over through her fingers. There were four in all. She tried to guess their uses. She thought one must be to the desk drawer in the doctor’s room. Another might be to the guest bedrooms, and she had to wonder if all the guest bedrooms—in the doctor’s house and in the guesthouse—used the same lock. If so, that left two other keys. One might be to the entrance of the doctor’s house. Or maybe all the doors used the same key. Impossible to know unless she tried them.

  The wardrobe might have a lock.

  She remembered the wardrobe with the many vases inside. They’d looked important, neatly spaced from each other on each shelf, lined in straight columns with the ones above and below. They were all different sizes and shapes. She wondered what their purposes were. Heirlooms, perhaps?

  She looked over her shoulder at the naked window, fearful that someone outside might be watching, that Nuala might be spying, or something worse…

  She rolled the keys into her fist, stared at her knuckles for a good minute, and then tucked them under her pillow, where she lay her head and shut her eyes.

  I think they’re hurting him.

  Her eyes opened.

  She wouldn’t sleep a wink that night.

  ✽✽✽

  Somewhere above the clouds the sun was hot and bright, but on the ground the earth was shady and noisy with wind. The wind pulled the grass in sweeping waves. Addie watched, sitting alone against the side of the guesthouse.

  Without reason, like a sudden instinct, she turned to her left and spotted Nuala’s face peeking around the corner. Found out, Nuala’s observant expression melted to a smile. She tiptoed gracefully toward her, her white sundress the weather’s plaything.

  “It’s nice being outside now, isn’t it? Now that the days aren’t so hot?”

  Addie nodded. Nuala took her place next to her, leaning against the house’s siding, arms held behind her back.

  “Addie, what did Lyle say to you before he left?”

  Addie looked up, their eyes met.

  “I don’t remember him saying anything.”

  Nuala laughed. “Addie. Please. You can talk to me.”

  Addie said nothing.

  “Lyle took something belonging to the doctor, and I know you know where they are.”

  She regarded Nuala plainly, and without a single twitch in her eye she said, “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Lyle didn’t come to see me that night.”

  “You followed him out of the guesthouse. You were standing on the porch watching him go.”

  “Joanna and I only heard him leaving. What he came for, I don’t know. I can’t tell you anything more than that.”

  “You should trust me, Addie. There’s no reason to lie.”

  “Maybe you should trust me.”

  Nuala’s smile turned to a grin. Then she nodded, a look of dawning agreement.

  “Actually… you’re right. I’m sorry to push you. I don’t mean anything by it, I’m just a little anxious.”

  “What is it that Lyle took?”

  Despite her apology, that knowing, accusing smile flashed involuntarily and Nuala had to smother it by squinting into the distance, observing the forest there, and how the wind bullied the tree branches around and around like speedbags.

  “Nothing too important. Nothing he could have used, at least. The doctor just wants them back.”

  “Maybe I can help look for them, whatever they are?”

  “No, that’s all right. You have more important things to occupy your mind, I’m sure.”

  She smoothed her dress down her legs—a useless mannerism—and left Addie alone the rest of the day.

  ✽✽✽

  Joanna came inside in a hurry, patted her leg for Meatball to follow quickly. She looked outside one last time before shutting the door and then turned toward Addie at the table. Her mouth was drawn with worry but her eyes were alive with something different.

  “What is it? You look guilty.”

  She went to the window and peeked out.

  “What are you looking for?”

  She walked briskly to the table and pulled a chair next to Addie. Then she slapped her palm down on the table, her eyes locked on Addie to see her expression.

  “You’re not going to believe this, but I found something just now. In the outhouse.”

  Addie cringed. “That sounds… troubling.”

  She scoffed. She removed her hand. “No, that.”

  She revealed a single key on the table beneath her hand. She beamed.

  “Is that…”

  “I think it’s the key to the truck.”

  “You found it in the outhouse?”

  “It was in the corner next to the toilet on the floor. Just sitting there.”

  “How…” It quickly occurred to her. “He must have thrown it when he ran.”

  “Maybe. But that’s where it was.”

  “He knew they’d catch him and threw it for us to find.”

  “If only they’d caught him…”

  Addie took the key from the table. “I’ll hold on to this with the others.”

  ✽✽✽

  “Do you think they could be listening to us?”

  Joanna pulled Meatball closer. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you think they might be spying on us? Listening to our conversations or watching us somehow?”

  The fire crackled in the fireplace.

  “Like with cameras? I don’t think so. Not out here.”

  Addie considered. They didn’t have electricity, it seemed. Recorders could operate on batteries, though. Cameras, too, maybe, but she didn’t know enough about any of that. How practical could that be? She thought it unlikely.

  “You’re probably right.”

  Joanna stared intently at Addie, tried to figure her out, the way she chewed her nails and couldn’t sit in one position longer than a minute.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “I feel like I have to do something,” Addie said. “Something’s wrong with Bud. I knew it before Lyle said anything, but I’d only thought it was Bud at first, that he was hurt and angry with me. Now I’m not so sure. They might be hurting him.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just worried.”

  “And he won’t speak to you at all?”

  “When I tried, he turned me away. He very well might be upset with me, but it isn’t just that. Lyle said something about it. He said their treatments will get worse, that they won’t actually be helping us anymore.”

  “We don’t know that anything he said was true. He wasn’t exactly right in the head toward the end, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “But you’re worried.”

  “I have to be. Bud… he doesn’t deserve to be here.”

  “I don’t think that’s fair…”

  “I just care about him, is all. I feel responsible for him somehow.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just do.”

  Joanna sighed. “I guess you’ll never tell me, then. About the two of you.”

  Addie looked Joanna over, a sorrowful gaze. Then her eyes fell on Meatball in her arms and she was overcome once again with the willies. Something occurred to her.

  “Joanna,” she started. “You don’t think it’s possible…”

  “What?”

  “What if Meatball were the doctor’s eyes and ears?”

  Joanna burst into laughter. “Have they been feeding you crazy pills?”

  “It wouldn’t be the most outrageous thing that’s happened here. His being here at all is outrageous on its own.”

  That stopped Joanna’s laughter, and her petting slowed. She looked down at the small dog in her lap, and he peered up at her with his wet, beady little eyes. His nose twitched.

  “If they wanted to watch us, they’d have been doi
ng it long before him.” She looked around the room, passed her eyes over all the furnishings and hanging décor. “Hell, anything in this room could…” She paused. “Hey! You changed the subject, don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  “About what?”

  “About you and Bud.”

  “Oh. Right…”

  Taking a deep breath, Addie relented and told Joanna her story. Not just about Bud, but everything. No detail was spared. She only meant to tell a little, but the more she talked the more that spilled out, an avalanche of truths waiting for a confidant to break the stitches where they festered. She told her again about her father, and then about her mother. She told her everything following her father’s death, about the gray days in her memory which seemed to exist as one long blurry day that spanned years, filled with nothing but thoughtless autopilot routine. She told her about Carter. She told her about Sam, a young man she only met once and would likely never meet again, though she couldn’t deny the mysterious impact their meeting had on her, even if she couldn’t understand it yet. She told her all about that final night. Nuala in the graveyard. Her mother in the bathtub.

  “And now I’m here,” she said. She rubbed her eyes, which remained surprisingly dry. “I don’t think it’s any coincidence, Bud’s being here. Coincidences like that don’t exist.”

  “Why would they bring him, then?”

  “Maybe it’s possible they came for one of us and happened upon the other. I don’t know. We still don’t know how the doctor chose us. I don’t know if I care anymore.”

  “You think they’re hurting him?”

  “I can’t say I know that either,” she said, and her eyes fell once again to the curly brown dog in Joanna’s lap. “But I need to.”

  ✽✽✽

  Joanna was invited to the doctor’s for another talk the following night. Her absence made Addie anxious, all alone in the guesthouse. She also worried they might try questioning her about Lyle and the keys, and hoped Joanna wouldn’t divulge anything.

  She never kept the keys in one place for very long. She hid them in multiple places any chance she got. Sometimes when she knew Nuala had cleaned or emptied something in search of them she’d hide them there. In such a bare home, it was surprising the places she could think of. She knew Nuala was desperate when she saw her stepping out of the outhouse that day, knowing she never used it before. For all Addie knew, Nuala didn’t even go to the bathroom.