Bathwater Blues: A Novel

by Abe Moss

  “You have to do something,” Addie said. “She’s getting desperate.”

  The doctor nodded. He came down the steps and walked by, a whiff of that earthy aroma trailing after him as he went. Addie exchanged a nervous glance with Nuala. They returned to the guesthouse. When they entered, Joanna was on the floor again and her cheeks were wet.

  “Please do something,” she said.

  The doctor removed a letter from inside his coat and handed it to Nuala. She unfolded it, skimmed it, and as she glanced up at them, watching her read, Addie noted her hesitation. She cleared her throat and read:

  “Joanna, I cannot express the sorrow it brings me to see you so upset. If I had predicted the possibility this might happen I never would have given the dog to you. But, as these events have fallen upon us, I must make what use of them I can, and if I see an opportunity for growth I cannot waste it. Sometimes unexpected challenges arise, and often times they appear daunting to us, and we feel smothered by them or lost in them. It’s up to us to tackle these challenges head on, in the hope of coming through stronger and more experienced than before. It’s up to us to choose whether we crumble or persevere. Lucky for you, you are not alone in this endeavor…”

  Addie listened, horror-stricken, guessing at where the doctor might be headed. She didn’t think it was possible. She thought she must be jumping to ridiculous conclusions, her imagination getting the best of her, but the thumping of her heart and the hollowing of Nuala’s voice the further she read told her otherwise.

  “Your dog is suffering. There is nothing that can be done to target whatever ails him. You must believe me when I say I never intended this to happen. It is a horror on my heart to know how it must weigh on yours. You don’t deserve this. But be that as it may, there is something good to grasp from this, however small a sliver it may seem at the moment. This will prove to be the ultimate challenge for you, one I did not orchestrate or foresee. You can come out of this a changed woman if you wish it…”

  Nuala paused here and looked up at not Joanna, but Addie. Addie knew it was coming and Nuala was confirming it with just her expression.

  “You can’t be serious…” Addie murmured.

  “The suffering of your dog is an extension of your own suffering,” Nuala read on. “This dog exists for you and only you. He suffers for you and only you, just as you have suffered for him. It is time to end that suffering.”

  Nuala lowered the letter from her face and the doctor stepped forward. He reached into his jacket once more. From it he produced a blade.

  “What is that?”

  He walked the blade to the counter where he set it gently and deliberately near its corner. There, he turned to them all, straight as a pillar, and waited.

  “You can’t mean for that to be what I think it’s for,” Addie said. “You can’t seriously expect that.”

  Joanna said nothing. She couldn’t take her eyes off the dog on the floor between them, listening to everything with no knowledge of what any of it meant. Her face was stunned slack.

  “Nuala, tell him he’s insane!”

  Nuala shook her head. “The doctor knows what’s best.”

  “Then you’re insane!”

  The doctor moved toward Addie and she withdrew. He placed a strong hand on her shoulder. If not for the bag over his head she was sure their eyes would meet. She wondered distantly what his eyes might look like, or what his face even looked like. All she saw was the rough cloth of the sack. There was no warmth of breath through the fabric, or even the sound.

  “You’ll turn her against you,” Addie said through gritted teeth. “You don’t know her. You’re ruining her chances.”

  But the doctor had nothing left for them. He departed quickly, his work done. Nuala stayed behind. She watched the dog on the floor the same as Joanna, speechless and lost.

  “I’m almost positive you’ve seen worse in all your days together,” Addie said, the blood pumping through her closed fists. “Yet you seem oddly affected by this.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nuala answered, never taking her eyes off the dog. Her voice was far away.

  “How can you let him think this is okay?”

  Nuala looked up quickly as though she’d suddenly remembered something. Her eyes snapped to Addie’s.

  “You both know where to find me if you need anything.”

  Then she was gone. The dog gave a long, low whine from the floor as the front door swept shut. Addie went to Joanna.

  “I’m so sorry. He’s out of his mind. He must be.”

  After a dozen unresponsive seconds Joanna finally collected herself. She breathed deeply, blinked hard, like she’d been in shock. Her voice when she spoke was clear and cold and level.

  “I don’t care if Lyle was crazy or not. He was right. I think we should leave before it’s too late.”

  RECOVERY

  PART FIVE

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  They sat on Addie’s bed late into the night with the door closed. Joanna brought Meatball with her, along with the blanket from her own bed which she arranged for him as a kind of nest on the floor. He slept as they talked, his breath punctuated with whimpers.

  “What are you going to do about him?” Addie asked, looking at the dog.

  “If we leave soon enough, maybe I can get him help…”

  Addie knew even if they managed to find help within a couple days, the idea of the dog living that long in his current state was wishful thinking. Watching him sleep in so much pain, it was clear to her she was watching his final hours.

  “How do you propose we go about that?”

  Joanna stared critically off at nothing while she thought.

  “I don’t know. I’m not good at planning this kind of stuff. I couldn’t even plan a successful suicide, remember.”

  “Whatever we do,” Addie said, “I’ll tell you right now I’m not leaving without Bud.”

  Joanna nodded. “I know.”

  “So whatever we plan, it has to include getting him out of here, too.”

  “You still have them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are they?”

  Addie patted the pillow next to her.

  “Let me see them.”

  She removed the keys in a tight fist, always afraid to let them jingle should there ever be someone around to hear it. She set them carefully into Joanna’s hands. Joanna turned them over with much less consideration.

  “Do you know what they’re all for?”

  “None of them but the truck. But I figure one must be to the bedrooms. Another has to be the filing cabinet Lyle went through. I don’t know what the other two are for.”

  “How do you think we should do it?”

  “I’ve thought about it a lot ever since we got here. Nothing serious, just daydreaming scenarios, I guess. We’d need a distraction. I have no idea where Nuala goes when she does, but the doctor never leaves his house. Not unless it’s for us. I’d need him gone.”

  Joanna thought for a moment. “Just long enough to get Bud out, right?”

  Addie chewed the inside of her cheek. “I need to see what Lyle saw. I need to see the files with the other people’s names. I want to know for myself.”

  “That could take too long, searching and reading through them if you found them. We don’t have that kind of time. Not unless the distraction was good enough.” Joanna’s face sank into darkness and she pondered. “We could burn down the guesthouse.”

  Addie almost laughed. “No. The doctor would want to make sure we were both safe before tending to any fire, which wouldn’t work for us.”

  “I could tell him you’re inside. They’d have to search the flames for you.”

  “Nuala would search it in no time. She’d realize I’m not inside and immediately wonder what you’re up to. We can’t do that.” Addie followed Joanna’s train of thought. “But having me go missing isn’t such a bad idea. It just needs to be something that’ll buy us more t
ime.”

  “Do you think they’d go looking as soon as I told them?”

  “Nuala would, I think.”

  “I could tell them you ran away, into the woods. I could point Nuala in any direction. That would keep her busy.”

  Addie nodded. It would make sense, after she had to pull her kicking and screaming from the woods the other night. She’d believe it.

  “But that still leaves the doctor.”

  “I could distract him myself somehow. But whatever I do will take me farther from you. How would I know you were ready to leave?”

  “Well… take him into the guesthouse. When I have Bud with me and we’re in the truck…” Assuming we get that far, she thought. “…I’ll honk for you.”

  “The doctor might hear you and stop me.”

  “There are going to be risks.” Addie considered something. “You’re sixteen, right? Can you drive?”

  “I don’t have a license but I know how, yeah.”

  “That’s good. Just in case.”

  ✽✽✽

  The next morning when Addie walked into the foyer, Joanna was standing at the kitchen counter. She was holding the knife, studying its blade. She gently poked the flesh of her pointer finger against its tip, getting a feel for it. When she heard Addie, she looked over her shoulder and her face was wet with tears, her eyes bloodshot and tired.

  “He died last night,” she said. “He whimpered all night long and I thought I’d never sleep. I almost came out here to get the knife. I thought about smothering him with my pillow. But then, he just…”

  Addie went to her.

  “It’s all right…”

  “I didn’t get to help him after all, and I couldn’t even end his suffering while it lasted.”

  “That’s not your fault. You couldn’t hurt him. The only wrongdoing here was the doctor expecting you to.”

  “When we leave, I’m still taking him with me. I can bury him this time, at least. Maybe I’ll have some closure that way.” She handed the knife to Addie, who held it awkwardly away from herself like it was a piece of soggy trash. “It was kind of stupid giving that to me, wasn’t it? They gave us a weapon.”

  Addie looked at the knife carefully, prodded her finger the way Joanna had done. She caught a glimpse of her own eyes in the blade’s reflection and saw they were round like quarters. It was stupid indeed. Strange. They’d been so careful to avoid letting them hurt themselves, and then to suddenly provide Joanna with something so lethal? What if Joanna had decided to use the knife on herself to escape the pain of losing Meatball again? Surely they predicted that…

  It made her wonder how much a secret their plan really was.

  ✽✽✽

  Nuala made them lunch. Turkey sandwiches. They ate together, the three of them at the kitchen table. It was possibly the quietest meal they’d shared.

  “How are you feeling, Joanna?” Nuala asked.

  “Not great.”

  Nuala nodded. “No, I’d imagine not…” She watched Addie eat for a moment and seemed pleased by her appetite. Joanna barely touched hers. “How is Meatball doing?”

  Joanna froze. She glanced to the kitchen counter where the knife still sat. They decided to leave it there in case Nuala stopped by, so she wouldn’t be curious where it’d gone or what they might have used it for. It was best she assumed they wouldn’t use it at all. But to keep it at all, Joanna had to lie.

  “He’s the same. Not better or worse. Just… the same.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I can always take another look at him to see if I notice any changes, if you think my input would help.”

  Joanna straightened in her seat a bit. Her lips were stiff as she spoke.

  “No. If he doesn’t get better by tonight… I think I’ll do it. I have to.”

  “Do what?”

  Joanna tried to hold Nuala’s gaze but she looked away after only a brief moment.

  “End his suffering.”

  Nuala seemed to watch Joanna very closely, looking for something, trying to pick up on a feeling, but finally she wore a sympathetic smile and shook her head.

  “That must be very hard for you. I hope you’ll come to me if you need me for anything. I want to help in any way I can.”

  They finished their sandwiches. They all leaned back in their chairs, stared blankly at the empty plates, unsure of what to say to excuse themselves or to end the meal already.

  “How is Bud?” Addie asked.

  “He’s healed immensely, that’s for sure. However, he’s still not quite himself. The doctor is working tirelessly with him to bring his spirits up. Melancholy can make physical healing even harder.”

  “Maybe he’d feel better coming back to us. Here, at the guesthouse.”

  “The doctor would love nothing more than to reunite him with the both of you, but there’s still some work that needs to be done in private. It’s important to get these things right to avoid confusion.”

  “I suppose so,” Addie agreed, though she didn’t actually understand. She didn’t think she needed to anymore. Just nod and smile.

  She stood and took her plate to the sink, pulled the wet sponge from the bucket, wiped it off. Nuala did the same, taking Joanna’s plate for her. She stood next to Addie at the sink.

  “If there’s anything you need from me,” she said in a low voice, and Addie was startled to see her concerned expression, “don’t hesitate to ask. Please.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. It was getting harder and harder to tell genuine concern from malicious prying anymore. Does she know something? she wondered. Sometimes it seemed she had to. Or maybe that was the point.

  Oh, who fucking cares anymore, Addie thought.

  “I won’t,” she said, smiling.

  Then she stepped outside to finally breathe.

  ✽✽✽

  “I’m going to be honest,” Addie said, speaking to Joanna under the shade of the guesthouse in the field. “I knew Meatball wasn’t going to live much longer, looking at him. If the doctor and Nuala are smart enough, which they are, they don’t expect him to either. If we’re going to—”

  “We should do it tonight,” Joanna interrupted. A breeze stirred the grass around them, cool and fragrant with pine.

  “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Addie’s insides ignited with panic at the very thought, however—an icy pool in her gut. More and more she found it difficult to take a full breath. It felt as though they were jumping headfirst into a plan that was only half-baked. There were no rehearsals or practices or a step-by-step game plan.

  “We need to go over it much more thoroughly in the next few hours,” she said. “There’s a lot that can go wrong, and we’re screwed if anything does. We’re relying on our own predictions of how they’ll behave. What if Nuala doesn’t go after me right away? What if they already somehow know what we’ve planned?”

  “What if the truck doesn’t start?” Joanna added. “What if all the tires fall off before we even leave the yard? What if a giant sinkhole opens and swallows us up?”

  Addie grinned, though all these things were possibilities in her worried mind. She tried her best to forget them.

  “I know what you’re saying, but we should still plan as best we can.”

  “If we fail, there’s a high chance nothing will happen. They’ll slap our wrists and keep a closer eye on us.”

  “No,” Addie said. “Not if what Lyle said is true. If we try this, the doctor could deem us unfixable. Nothing he’s done has gotten through, he’ll think. He might decide to wipe the slate clean and start over. Start over with someone else, I mean.”

  Joanna cracked her knuckles. “Then let’s get it right the first time.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Like a watchful mother tucking her child in, the sky drew a curtain of darkness over them, hard and black and depthless. The air was still and damp, almost cold but not quite, the promise of biting, bitter cold swelling someplace far out of reach. Autumn
was there to claim its annual quarter, and the night was its first conquest. Both Addie and Joanna felt the change, as though the season had turned on a dime. They pulled their sheets over themselves in the privacy of their separate rooms. Their eyes were closed but they didn’t sleep. They waited. Soon enough the mother of the night would close her eyes to them and they could work.

  Addie pulled the keys out from under her pillow. She set them on the edge of her bed. She took the bedsheet and wrapped it threefold around her arm and wadded it up around her fist. She stood on her bed, eyes out the window, the breezy field calling just as it always did at night when she watched it sleeplessly.

  She punched her sheeted fist through the window once. The glass shattered and trickled over her covered arm, rained to the ground outside. When she pulled her fist back through a couple shards fell to her bed around her feet. She didn’t mind. She punched again, and then again, taking out the leftover corners of windowpane until the window was open and safe to climb through. But she did not climb through it.

  She removed the sheet, dumped it to the ground, snatched the keys up from the bed. When she got to her bedroom door Joanna was already waiting. They faced each other in the dark hall.

  “The keys?”

  “I have them.”

  They left into the foyer. Addie took the knife from the kitchen counter. She went to the window over the kitchen sink and peered out into the yard.

  “I hope to fucking god she isn’t still out prowling like she does.”

  “It won’t matter.”

  “It will if she’s been watching the guesthouse. She’ll know I haven’t gone anywhere.”

  “You’ll stay here and watch until she leaves.”

  “Right.”

  “And I’ll tell the doctor that I think Meatball is dead. I’ll bring him over to see for himself. Then…”

  “Then you’ll do whatever you can to keep him here. Break down if you have to. Make him comfort you. Anything to buy me time.”

  “And you’ll honk or holler when you’re ready. And I’ll have to get to you before the doctor does…”