Page 42 of You, Me, and the Sea
Chapter Eleven
Iwas grateful when Rosalie, perhaps sensing that I needed a moment to myself, asked if I would like to take a bath. She helped me to a bathroom with dark walls and a large white bathtub and proceeded to fill the tub with steaming-hot water. A stream of lavender-scented soap produced fluffy mounds of bubbles across the water’s surface and an irrepressible murmur of delight from my throat. After setting a change of clothes, ointment, and a bandage on a small bench, Rosalie walked briskly out of the room.
Alone, I undressed and sucked in my breath as I peeled the bloodied bandage from my calf. I lowered myself into the bath, biting my cheek as the water stung my wound. The room fell quiet. As the ache subsided, I heard myself sigh deeply. I felt as though I were living inside one of the daydreams that I had when I walked through the bathrooms of the houses that Amir and I explored. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again and I was there still, alone in the most beautiful bathroom in the world.
Two hand towels hung over the edge of the tub. I scrubbed my body, turning first one and then the other towel brown. There was a strange little brush hanging from the bath spout and I used it to scrape below my nails. The soap smelled of a flower garden in the middle of July, a decadent, sun-kissed scent that made me consider, for just a second, what the soap might taste like if I bit into it. Instead, I sunk my entire head under the bubbles and held my breath for so long that when I surfaced the room was filled with stars. I washed my hair with handfuls of shampoo and conditioner, and it became so soft that it did not feel like my own. I drained the bath and filled it again with even more hot water and then I drained that, too, and stepped clumsily from the tub to dry myself.
I discovered that the pain medication was working; it was easier now to put weight on my leg. My thoughts were a dreamy, contented blur. I pressed a new bandage gently to my leg. When I lifted a folded blue dress from the bench where Rosalie had left it, I saw beneath it a pair of cream-colored silk underwear and a matching bra. I laughed in surprise. I had only the white cotton bras and underwear that Rei gave me on my birthday each year—a gift that I had always been thrilled to receive, but now saw had been a gift for a child. The silk undergarments Rosalie had left me were edged with soft lace. I slipped them on and felt shaky with delight. Would Rosalie let me keep them? I thought I might do anything to be allowed to call such beautiful things my own.
I lowered the dress over my head. My bath-pruned fingers fumbled over the slippery pearl-colored buttons. It was a bluecotton dress, plain but for the buttons that lined the front, but it swished and rippled below my knees in a fancy way. Rosalie had not left a pair of shoes, and my own sneakers were so filthy and bloodstained that I decided to remain barefoot. I pressed the plush towel against my long hair, drying it. There was a brush on the bathroom vanity. Thinking of Emma’s pretty, neat hair, I plaited my own into a thick braid that fell over my shoulder.
When I cleared steam from a corner of the mirror, I hardly recognized myself. I looked older. Or perhaps younger. I could not decide which. I was a different version of myself.
I felt a pang of remorse thinking of Amir, home alone with Bear. I worried for him, but I also realized, guiltily, that it felt wonderful to pretend that I was someone who wore clothes like these, who took hot baths that brimmed with bubbles. If Amir were with me, I could not have pretended; his presence would have been a reminder of who I really was. I would have looked at him and seen myself, the person I had always been. This was usually a comfort.
Together, Amir and I were tethered to our childhood at Horseshoe Cliff, but alone, I felt suddenly, unsettlingly, feverishly free.
I turned away from my reflection and walked as steadily as I could manage from the bathroom.
“WELL,”ROSALIE SAID,looking me over when I entered the great room, “aren’t you lovely?”
I glanced down, self-conscious. “Thank you for the clothes,” I said. “And the bath.”
“The dress suits you. Keep it.”
I felt my mouth hang open for a second. Maybe she thought I would refuse her generous offer, but it was all I could do to stop myself from hobbling out of the house right then and there before she could take it back. “Thank you. I love it.”
She nodded and told me to sit by the fire while she fixed us something to eat. Emma was perched on the edge of the sofa, working on a puzzle. She’d managed to piece together a yellow sailboat, but the tempestuous sea on which it sailed was strewn in bits across the coffee table. I looked around but didn’t see Will.
“Do you want to help?” Emma asked hopefully.
I nodded. I’d never done a puzzle before, but I started gathering the white pieces that formed the froth on top of the waves. We worked together in silence for a time.
“Will is studying,” Emma said. I was embarrassed to realize she’d caught me gazing toward the door. How long had I been looking in that direction? The pain medication made me feel as though all of my thoughts and movements were at half-pace. “He’salwaysstudying,” she added. “He’s in law school.”
How old did that make him? I wondered. Did people go to law school right after college? I had no idea. How strange to think that Will might be around the same age as Bear, who was twenty-six. Bear was dark, bristly, and bulky—fat now, really, with his ever-expanding belly full of beer. Just thinking of his glowering expression made me tremble involuntarily. Will, slim and smiling, with skin like the inside of a clean shell, looked years younger. And yet, it was possible that they’d been bornin the same year, on the same day even, bursting into the same world with equal ignorance of their futures.
Rosalie walked toward us from the kitchen with a wooden platter. “Can we clear some space on the table?”
Emma and I swept the scattered puzzle pieces into a pile. The platter that Rosalie set down was covered with an array of cheeses and meats and olives, as well as sliced bread and a small pot of honey.
“Will!” Rosalie called, walking back toward the door and leaning out into the hall. “Come join us!” When she returned, she sat on the couch next to Emma. “We call this a fireside picnic, Merrow.” She handed me a white plate that felt delicate in my hand. “Please help yourself and don’t be shy. There’s plenty more.”
“I love fireside picnics,” said Emma happily. She began to drizzle honey over a piece of bread, and once she started I wasn’t sure she’d ever stop.
“Saving any for me?” Will asked as he walked in.
“You snooze, you lose,” Emma replied, grinning.
“I was hardly snoozing.” Will settled into the other armchair. “Though I was tempted.” I was gratified to feel his eyes flick over my hair and dress. “How are you, Merrow? Feeling any better?”
“I think so. To be honest, the medicine is making me feel a little fuzzy.”
“Too fuzzy to eat?”
I laughed at the thought. “No.”
The little knife that Rosalie had set out was sharper than it looked, slipping easily into a block of blue-veined cheese. Withina few moments, my plate was covered with food. I sat back in the armchair and ate and ate and ate. I listened as Will and Emma and Rosalie teased one another with gentle affection. They smiled often. I tried not to stare, though I felt like an observer of another species. How would it be to live within such a family? They spoke with such easy generosity and listened with patience and good humor.
