The Wally Lamb Fiction Collection: The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, We Are Water, and Wishin' and Hopin' (258 page)

“Stupid tangles!” she said. I opened the door a crack. She was sitting cross-legged in the tub. Her hair was wet and soapy. She had a comb in her hand and was yanking on the snarls. . . . Why not, I thought. The coast was clear. Donald had said he wasn’t going to be back until late, and if Uncle Chick wasn’t home by now, he was probably down at the Silver Rail, getting shit-faced. I opened the door a little more.

Stay away from her, I told myself, but my brain and my mouth were on different wavelengths. “Need some help?”

“Yes, please.”

I swung the door open wide and went in there. “Well, first of all, let’s get the shampoo out of your hair,” I said. “Close your eyes.” I ran some warm water over her head and looked where I wasn’t supposed to. “Now give me the comb.” I worked it gently through her hair. “There,” I said.

I was headed out of the bathroom when I stopped and turned back to face her. I grabbed the bar of soap on the sink and approached her. “How’s that rash of yours?” She said it was all gone. “Yeah? You sure? Because you don’t want it to come back again. Why don’t I give you a little help washing up down there?” I said. She shook her head.

“I’m a big girl, silly,” she said. “I can wash myself.”

Okay,
leave
, I begged myself. Go do the dishes. Go watch TV. Instead, I told her if she was doing it the right way, she wouldn’t have gotten eczema in the first place. “Let me just show you how to do it right,” I said. I grabbed the washcloth and knelt down next to the tub. But as I was reaching between her legs, she pushed her knees together. “What’s the matter?” I asked her.

She said her mother had told her not to let anyone touch her in her “private place.”

“And she was right,” I said. “You shouldn’t. But she meant people you don’t know, or boys at school, not people you trust. You trust me, right?”

She nodded. The fear in her eyes made my heart pound.

“Okay then. I haven’t got all day. Open up.” When she did, I soaped up the washcloth and passed it back and forth against the insides of her thighs, then against her little bud. “How does it feel to know you’re getting nice and clean down there?” I asked. “Feels good, right?”

She swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” she said. “Kinda.”

“Is the water warm enough? I can make it a little warmer if you like.”

She shook her head, blinking back tears. She was so sweet, so pretty. I cupped her chin with my left hand and let the washcloth fall away to the bottom of the tub. Let my fingers take over. “It’s okay if it feels good,” I said. “It’s not a bad thing to feel good while you’re getting clean.” I was rock hard, pushing myself against the outside of the tub. I leaned toward her and kissed her on the mouth. Closed my eyes and came. When I opened my eyes again, she was staring at me, bewildered. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing. Why? Come on. Let’s get you out of this water before you turn all wrinkly like a raisin.” I tickled her under her chin to make her giggle, but she pulled away. “Want me to towel you off?” I said. She shook her head.

After she’d gotten into her nightgown, brushed her teeth, and said her prayers, I tucked her in and began a new chapter of the book I’d started reading her the night before. “More! Read more, Kent!
Please
?” she had begged me. But that night, she didn’t even seem to be listening. She interrupted me midsentence to ask where her daddy was.

“He had a meeting to go to,” I said. “By the way, I told him about your eczema, and he asked me if I’d show you the right way to wash yourself down there. He’ll be glad you know how to clean yourself the right way now, but he said to tell you not to talk to him about it. Because he’s kind of shy about stuff like that. But I’m not, so whenever you have questions, you just come to me and I’ll answer them for you. Because that’s what your daddy wants, and I know it would be what your mommy would want, too. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

I rose from the chair next to her bed. “Nighty night then.”

“Nighty night.” I turned off her light and started toward the door.

“Kent?”

When I turned back, the moonlight through her window illuminated her silhouette. “Yeah?”

“Today at school, I started thinking about Mommy and I couldn’t remember her face at first. But then I could.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t you take out one of the pictures of her from the photo album and put it in your school bag? Then you can put it in your desk and look at it whenever you need to. Okay?”

She nodded. Gave me a half-smile. “Do you think Mommy watches me up in heaven?” she asked.

I said I was sure she did. “Now if there’s nothing else, you’d better get to sleep. Okay?”

But there
was
something else. “Before?” she said. “When I was in the tub? How come you kissed me like that?”

I turned on her light. “Because I love you, Annie. I love you this much.” I spread my arms as wide as I could.

“And you love Donald and Daddy, too. Right?”

“Yeah, sure. And I loved Gracie and your mom. But I love you best of all. Now that’s enough stalling. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” she said.

After I left her room, I paced, telling myself I could never touch her that way again. I’d done it once, and that was going to be it. Because I
did
love her. I
did
want to keep her safe. And what if Uncle Chick or Donald found out about what I’d done? That time we’d arm-wrestled at the kitchen table, they’d both taken me in like ten seconds. Either one of them could beat me to a bloody pulp. I said it out loud, as if that made the promise more legit. “Never again. Never, ever.”

I was sprawled on the couch watching TV when Donald walked in. “Hey,” he said. “Pop home?”

“Not yet. You eat? There’s a can of beef stew on the counter.”

He said he and some of his friends had gone out for pizza. “Well, I’ve got a big chem test tomorrow. Guess I’ll go study and then hit the sack. Annie okay?” I told him she was fine.

When Uncle Chick staggered in, he nodded in my direction and went to the kitchen for a beer. “What are you watching?” he asked when he came back to the living room and squinted at the TV.

“The news,” I said. What the hell else would I be watching at eleven o’clock? He flopped down on the couch next to me, stinking of booze, and the two of us stared at the news footage: the race riots down south, the new pope they’d just picked to replace the one who croaked. “Whassiz name? Cardinal Martini?” Uncle Chick said.

“
Mon
tini.”

“Cardinal Martini, dry with a twist.” He laughed like what he’d just said was fucking hilarious.

Annie must have been waiting up for him, because when she heard his voice she came out of her room and made a beeline for him. Uh-oh, I thought.

“Hey, Anna Banana,” he said. “What are you doing up so late?” She said she couldn’t sleep. “No? How come?” She looked right at me when he asked her that, but Uncle Chick was too crocked to notice. I put my finger to my lips.

“I just can’t,” she said.

“Well, I tell you what. Why don’t I tuck you in and sprinkle some magic sleepy dust on you the way Mommy used to. Then you’ll go right to sleep.” When he stood up, he lost his balance, banging into the coffee table and knocking it over. “Whoopsy daisy,” he said. “How’d that get there?”

The last thing I needed was for the two of them to be alone in there, and for her to squeal about bath time. “Magic sleepy dust?” I said. “Gee, that sounds like fun. Can I join you?”

“Sure,” Chick said, unaware that Annie was shaking her head no.

Uncle Chick was home on time for the next couple of nights, and over the weekend, Donald was hanging around the house more than usual. But the following Monday evening, it was just the two of us again. I knocked on the door while she was in there, taking her bath. “Hey, you almost out?” I asked. “I’ve been waiting to take a shower.”

The door opened, and her eyes widened when she saw me standing there with just a towel wrapped around me. I was already kind of excited down there. “What’s the matter with you?” I said.

“Nothing.”

“Then take a picture. It lasts longer. You remember to brush your teeth?” She nodded. “Okay then. Get in bed and I’ll tuck you in in a few minutes.” As I walked past her toward the tub, I pulled off the towel and let it drop to the floor. I turned the water on, then looked back at her. She was standing in the hall, looking in at me—looking back and forth from my face to where I wanted her to look. “What?” I said, as if my standing there naked was the most normal thing in the world. She shrugged. “Okay then. Scoot. Give me a little privacy.” As I got in the shower, I heard the bathroom door bang closed. “Hey!” I shouted. “Leave it open.”

“You’re spoze to keep it closed,” she shouted back.

“Yeah? Who says?”

“My mommy.”

“Hey! Come back in here for a second,” I told her. When she did, I pulled back the shower curtain to give her another look. “The shower water makes the mirror fog up if the door’s closed. Then I can’t see what I’m doing when I shave. I could cut myself.” I surprised myself—scared myself a little, even—with how easily I’d come up with something on the spot.

“Donald and Daddy shave,” she said. “And
they
close the door.”

“Well, I guess they don’t mind cutting themselves then. But I do.” After I was finished, I pulled back the shower curtain, and there she was, sitting cross-legged just outside the door, playing with her Barbies.

“What’s up?” I said, walking bare-ass past her toward Donald’s and my room. I’d beaten off and was still semi-erect.

“Your pee-pee’s big,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. When I reached down and touched it, she got up and ran down the hall to her room, abandoning her dolls.

Until that night, I’d always taken my shower just before I went to bed. But now, whenever my uncle and my cousin weren’t around, I took it right after she took her bath. She was always making excuses to come into the bathroom while I was in there; it was like a game the two of us were playing. Still, sometimes what was happening scared me. What if the little show I was putting on for her turned into show-and-tell.
If
she told, Uncle Chick would probably kick my ass all the way back to New Britain. And if Donald found out, he’d probably choke me to death first and ask questions later. I was scared of both of them, but more scared that it might be Donald. Still, in a weird way, that was part of the thrill of doing what I was doing. Risking it and getting away with it. I didn’t know why.

One night, while I was sleeping, I woke up with Annie poking me on the shoulder. “Hmm? Whassa matter?” I said, still half-asleep. She whispered back that she’d had a bad dream and couldn’t wake her daddy up. No surprise there. When Chick came home plastered, he’d usually conk out on the couch with the TV going and still be there in the morning. I squinted over at the blanketed mound in Donald’s bed. Heard him snoring. Then I swung my legs to the floor, got up, and went back to her room with her. Crawled into bed and snuggled up against her. It felt nice. I didn’t wear pajamas like goody-goody Donald did; I slept in just my underpants. I waited, listening to her breathing until I was pretty sure she’d fallen asleep. Then I reached under her nightgown.

Annie started having a lot of bad dreams after that, and I was always the go-to guy. And on the nights she didn’t seek me out, I’d sometimes tiptoe down the hall and get into bed with her anyway. I liked it better when she didn’t wake up, because when she did, she’d hold her body stiff as a board and make fists. Sometimes if I got a little too insistent while I was touching her, she’d whimper, and sometimes she’d get so quiet that I’d have to stop and listen so I knew she was still breathing. “Hey?” I’d say.

“What?”

“Nothing. Everything’s all right. Go back to sleep.”

There was one close call. It happened after one of our nighttime visits. Usually, I’d get right up and tiptoe back to my own bed after I was done, but that night, I fell asleep lying against her and didn’t wake up until daybreak. I jumped out of her bed and, leaving her room, ran right into Donald. He was on his way to the bathroom, still half-asleep. “What the hell were you doing in Annie’s room?” he asked me.

“What was I
doing
?” I said. “What do you mean, what was I
doing
?” As my mind raced, trying to think of something, I forced myself to look him in the eye. I’d read someplace that that was how store detectives knew if someone was a shoplifter: if they couldn’t look their accuser in the eye. “She had a nightmare and got scared,” I said. “She woke me up. Said she was too scared to go back to her room by herself.”

He just stood there, waiting for more.

“And then I dozed off while I was sitting in that little chair of hers,” I said. “I just woke up. Man, my back is killing me.”

He wouldn’t stop looking at me. I couldn’t tell if he was buying it or not.

“It’s uh . . . She said she went to your dad first, but she couldn’t wake him up.” Change the subject, I told myself. Change the fucking subject. “Sleeping it off, I guess. Have you noticed how much he’s boozing lately?”

He nodded. “I tried to talk to him about it last weekend, but he got pissed. Told me I should run my own life and he’d run his. . . . Annie should have woken
me
up. I could have—”

“She said she tried to, but you wouldn’t wake up either.”

That sold it. He suddenly looked guilty “I was up reading until after midnight. We’re doing this book
1984
in honors English and I’m way behind. If she gives us a pop quiz before the weekend, I’m fucked.”

I nodded sympathetically. Told him Annie’s having gotten me up was no problem. “I’m a light sleeper. And anyways, my English teacher shows movies half the time, so I can always grab a nap in class.”

He reached up and started rubbing the side of his head. “The thing is, Kent, I can forget about getting a scholarship next year if I don’t keep my grades up. My guidance counselor told me colleges look real closely at your grades from junior year. . . . Annie say what her bad dream was about?”