“Good thing they have me hopped up on antibiotics.” He glanced down at his legs. “What about the bottom half? How do we make this not awkward?”
“Can you transfer to the edge of the tub?” I asked him, reaching over to turn the taps. Hot water gushed into the claw-footed bath, the steam rising to tickle my nose. “Once I get your pants off, you can swing your legs into the tub.”
Between his broken arm and ribs, Ben couldn’t do much to move himself. He tried rocking himself forward, but that made his ribs hurt, and he couldn’t push himself up from the chair with only one hand. In the end, I lifted him to his feet and sat him on the edge of the bathtub myself. Red-faced, he wiggled his sweatpants and boxers from around his waist, and I pulled them off the rest of the way, doing my best to avert my eyes.
“Swing it around,” I ordered. It was the first time one of us had been naked in front of the other since we decided on the divorce, save for a single night during which too much bourbon resulted in a quick mistake. I figured as long as I kept my manner and tone professional, we could make it through this without too much embarrassment.
Ben lifted his legs over the lip of the tub and rotated so that his back was toward me. Like before, I lifted him from his armpits, his back resting against my chest, and deposited him gently into the water. He hissed as the steam hit his skin.
“Too hot?” I said, turning the cold tap on. “How’s that?”
“Getting better.” He turned over a bottle of liquid soap near the running faucet. Bubbles quickly appeared, censoring his lower half from my sight. He kept his broken arm—the plaster cast running all the way from his shoulder to his elbow—perched on the edge of the tub. “Sorry you have to do this. I know it’s not exactly ideal.”
“Tip your head back.” I filled a deep cup with warm water and poured it over Ben’s curls, using my fingers to make sure all of his thick strands got soaked. He sighed and closed his eyes. “It’s not ideal, but I don’t mind doing it. We’re still married for now.”
He reached back to run the rough, warm palm of his good hand up and down my forearm. A lump rose in the back of my throat. Gently, I took his hand and placed it beneath the water again. He didn’t say anything, but his shoulders tensed up. I shampooed and rinsed his hair in silence, but when I dunked a washcloth into the soapy water and began washing his back, he pulled away.
“I can do it,” he said. “Give me a minute.”
“No problem.”
Outside the closed door of the bathroom, I leaned against the wall and listened for signs of trouble on the other side. If Ben slipped or hurt himself, I could be there in less than three seconds. I hoped his dignity was intact, though I suspected the silent exchange between us had embarrassed him. Ben was so used to getting what he wanted because his confidence had always been sky high, but things were beginning to change. In a way, I still loved Ben—enough to put myself in such an intimate situation as bathing him—but I was afraid of giving him the wrong idea. If his maneuver in the tub was any indication, he was still trying to win me over.
He called me back in after a few minutes. He’d already drained the water, rinsed himself off, and draped a towel over his bottom half. I helped him out of the tub and back into the wheelchair. In his bedroom, he managed to get his pants on by himself but needed my help with a shirt.
“This will get easier,” I promised him as I threaded his bulky cast through the sleeve of a fresh T-shirt.
“What will?” he asked. “Bathing myself or being embarrassed in front of my own wife?”
“Both, hopefully,” I said. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and Ben’s room was beginning to darken. I longed to leave the house, to find dinner by myself at one of the local restaurants or meet up with Theo and Sammy at their apartment for a homecooked meal. It had been too long since I’d seen my friend or her son. Sammy was probably wondering whether or not I was holding up my end of our bargain. For the past week, my focus had been on Ben. Every day, I made sure he ate three meals and took his medicine at the right times. Sometimes, I felt like the concerned wife I ought to be. Other times, I felt like a babysitter who’d been stuck with a particularly whiny charge. Either way, I wanted out.
“Your doctor recommended a few physical therapy clinics to me over the phone,” I told Ben. “He says you need to look into them as soon as your arm starts to heal. Otherwise, you might not get full range of motion back. One of the clinics is right here in Falconwood. Another one does at-home care, so you wouldn’t have to drive. That’s more expensive, but since your new job is paying you more, it could be a good option—”
“I’m not thinking about physical therapy yet,” Ben said shortly. He yanked the shirt down to cover the rest of his torso then turned the wheelchair sharply away from me. “My arm hurts too much. I can’t even move my fingers.”
“That’s kind of the point of physical therapy,” I told him. “Did you ask your boss about injury leave? Or are you going to use a voice-to-text application to finish your job?”
Ben was a freelance technical writer. Right before we moved to Falconwood, he had landed a huge contract with a high-paying company. It was the only reason we could afford to push through with the Abram Mansion renovations.
“I haven’t told him,” Ben said, wheeling himself to a pile of clothes I’d run through the washer and dryer for him but never folded. He set half the load in his lap, wheeled to the dresser, and dumped the clothes into a random drawer. “I figured he didn’t need to know.”
“How did you figure that?” I asked, incredulous. “You haven’t worked at all this week. What was your excuse?”
“I said we went on a marriage retreat.” He averted his gaze from mine, supposedly focused on his laundry task. “He understood.”
“Ben, you’re going to have a hard time keeping up with your previous pace,” I reminded him. “Why would you lie to your boss about that?”
He finished throwing the clothes into the drawer and proceeded to try and close it, but the overflowing pile inside prevented him from doing so. “If he figures out I’m injured, this job is toast. He’ll hire someone else.”
“And what happens when you don’t meet your quota?” I challenged. “What are you going to tell him then?”
“Why do you care?” he shot back. “Why does it matter what I tell him? You like living in this big-ass house, Peyton? Do you like how quickly the renovations are happening? Because if I lose this job, all that goes away. Say bye-bye to Jim and his wonderful crew of construction workers who couldn’t bother to fix the terrace railing before I freaking fell through it.”
The bitterness in his voice struck me like he’d slapped me across the face. Ben hardly ever lost his temper, even in the bleakest of situations, but he’d finally reached his breaking point.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” I warned him. “I’m not your punching bag.”
“Then get out of my room.”
I stood my ground for a fraction of a second, wondering whether I should challenge him, but someone hammered on the front door with the volume and gusto of a determined high school drumline. With one last look at Ben, I swept from his room to answer the front door. On the other side, pounding away, was Theo. She threw herself into my arms.
“Peyton, I don’t know what to do,” she said, gasping for breath. “You’ll never believe what happened.”
My heart took off, and I feared it might burst through my chest and sweater. Had Sammy told his mother about our secret already? Theo was the best keeper of a cool head I knew. A panic like this didn’t spring up out of nowhere.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, dreading the answer. I led Theo inside so I could shut the door against the biting wind whistling through the trees. “Where’s Sammy?”
“I left him at daycare.” She didn’t make it past the foyer before she started pacing, shedding layers of clothing with each pass. “I know what you’re going to say. ‘But you never leave him at daycare!’ Why should I? You know how Sammy is
, running away every chance he gets. But I wanted to talk to you without him here. I didn’t want him to listen in.”
My heart, which already felt like it was sitting in my stomach rather than my chest, threatened to drop lower and exit my body through an entirely different route. “Why? What’s the matter? You’re freaking me out, Theo.”
“My landlord raised the rent on our apartment.”
My heart sprang back to its proper place as my chest expanded with relief. “That’s it?”
Theo clapped a hand to her forehead. “What do you mean, that’s it? Peyton, she added an extra two hundred dollars every month. I can hardly afford to live above the bakery now.”
I sat on the edge of the couch. Since my own panic was over, it was time to focus on Theo’s. “Did you ask her why?”
“Rent goes up every year when you re-sign a lease,” Theo said. “Rose usually cuts me some slack, but she said the building needs a new roof. If she doesn’t get the money to replace it, it’s going to fall in, and we won’t have a place to live at all.”
“There has to be some rule about this in your lease,” I said. “Something that ensures she can’t take advantage of you like that.”
“That’s the thing,” Theo moaned. “I know she’s not taking advantage of me. She’s raising the rent to what I should be paying if she hadn’t been giving me discounts all these years. I would be a total ass not to pay it.”
“What about cutting corners?” I suggested. “You could eat at home more often or clip coupons. Some people do online surveys for money. You could try that?”
“I’ve tried that. It’s bogus,” she said. “What I need to do is work more hours at the office, but if I do that, I don’t have anyone to pick Sammy up from school every day.”
I scratched a dry spot on my scalp and grimaced at the dead skin that came away beneath my nail. “I know you hate the idea, but every school has an afterhours daycare program.”
“Sammy hates school as it is,” she replied. “I can’t imagine telling him he has to stay there longer. Not to mention, I don’t trust the teachers at that place. They’re always punishing Sammy instead of his bullies. It’s heinous. Ugh, what am I going to do?”
I rolled around the possibilities in my head. Theo was the queen of overprotective mothers. It was one of the reasons she didn’t leave Sammy in daycare unless she absolutely had to. She also didn’t have any family around to take care of Sammy in her absence. That left one option, an option that put everyone involved in an advantageous position.
“What if I watched Sammy after school?” I offered. “I could pick him up and take him around with me. Then I could drop him off whenever you get home. It wouldn’t be any trouble for me.”
Theo stopped short, her boots leaving a black skid mark on the new flooring. “You would do that for me?”
“Yeah, for you and Sammy.”
“I can’t ask you for that,” she said. “You have Ben to take care of.”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. Besides, Ben needs to learn how to take care of himself.”
Theo chewed the tinted balm off of her bottom lip. “Are you sure? He can be a lot to handle, and I can’t afford to pay you.”
“You don’t have to pay me,” I said with a little laugh. “And I like Sammy. We get along. When do you need me to start?”
“Tomorrow would be great.”
“Tomorrow it is.”
12
Ben woke at dawn when Jim and his construction crew arrived to continue working on the terrace. They were almost finished repairing the broken tiles and faulty railings, though I wasn’t sure why they had chosen to renovate the terrace at this point anyway. I was more concerned with the interior of the house, but if I asked Ben about the renovation plans, all I got as a reply were a few vague grunts. I also asked Ben to tell Jim to come an hour later in the day, so I didn’t wake up with the birds to the deafening buzz of saws and pounding of hammers, but it was to no avail. Each morning, like clockwork, Jim showed up with the sun. I admired and loathed his work ethic.
This morning, Ben hadn’t called me to help him with whatever task he needed assistance with—like dressing himself—so I found him in the foyer, talking to Jim in the same shirt and pants I’d helped him into last night. His hair had dried funny, and his curls all stuck up at the back of his head. His eyes were pink and puffy, as if he hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. All in all, Ben looked worse than he had all week despite the bath.
“I need it done quick,” he was saying to Jim, whose bulky form and enormous beard were not indicative of his teddy bear personality. “I’m talking like one day. Would you be able to do that?”
Jim chewed on his bottom lip. “It’s a lot of work for one day. That’s a big bathroom. I’d probably need a few extra guys to get it done, and we’d have to expedite the shipping for the products we need. I hate to say it, but it’s gonna cost you.”
“I don’t care what it costs,” Ben said. “I need a bathroom on this floor that’s accessible for me. All I want to know is if you can get it done in a day.”
“I’ll draw up an estimate for you,” Jim offered. “Once I figure out how much extra I gotta pay my guys for working overtime, I’ll let you know how much it’ll cost. You might change your mind when you see the total.”
As I leaned against the wall of the hallway that led to the foyer, Ben’s eyes flickered toward me. He saw me there, but he made no acknowledgement of my presence. “I need this done as soon as possible,” he said. “I don’t see any other options.”
“We could install the assistance tools in the old bathroom,” Jim said. “It would be a lot cheaper for you, and we could get it done in a few hours.”
“I told you. I don’t want to put new equipment in that old bathroom.”
Jim caught sight of me, and we exchanged a quick eyebrow lift that said everything it needed to say about Ben’s pushy behavior. “I’ll let you talk it over with your wife,” Jim said, tipping his hat as he ambled toward the exit, eager to return to his real work. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not allowed to do anything before I run it past my wife first.”
“We’re almost divorced,” Ben said. “I don’t need her permission.”
“This house is a joint task,” I reminded him. My morning voice was hoarse and rough, making my reply sound more severe than intended. “If you want to change something, I have to agree. What are you trying to do to the bathroom anyway?”
“Good luck,” Jim muttered as he walked past me and jogged out into the snow to rejoin the rest of his team.
“I’m going to make the first-floor bathroom handicap accessible,” Ben said, sifting through a pile of hand-drawn blueprints on his lap. They were messy and flawed—not Jim’s work. Ben flipped them over before I could look at them. “I need to be able to bathe myself.”
“Ben, you’re not handicapped.” I crossed my arms. “The doctor said your arm was likely to be fully healed in six months. As long as you start the physical therapy when they tell you to—”
Ben groaned and rolled his chair across the foyer, toward the stairs that led to the kitchen. “Enough about physical therapy! You’re like an annoying parrot. ‘The doctor said this, the doctor said that.’ The doctor also said I couldn’t start physical therapy until three or four weeks of healing. Did you hear that part?”
“Yes, but he said you should start reaching out to the therapists you’re interested in beforehand so they’re not booked when you need them,” I replied, hurrying after him as he increased his speed toward the stairs. “Are you going to catapult yourself into the kitchen?”
“If I have to,” he said. “I need breakfast.”
He ended up stopping short of the stairs, the front wheels of his chair hovering on the first step. He gripped the railing with his good hand, as if gathering the courage to propel himself out of the wheelchair and down to the kitchen. I tickled the back of his neck, where his curls were thickest. Immediately, his whole body re
laxed. He let go of the railing and settled in the chair again. The neck thing was an old trick of mine. Whenever Ben was feeling particularly stressed, I would squeeze or tickle him there. Every time, without fail, it would lessen the weight on his shoulders.
“I’ll toast you a bagel,” I offered. “But you have to put the cream cheese on yourself. Go wait in the living room. You can eat off the coffee table.”
With a sigh, Ben rolled himself away from the stairs without another word. I went into the kitchen, listening to Jim and his crew bang away outside. As I opened a drawer to find a butter knife, something rattled beneath it. I ducked low for a look at the underside, but nothing seemed out of place. I slid the drawer in then out again. The same annoying rattle sounded, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t find the source of it. With a roll of my eyes, I slammed the drawer shut again.
“Where’s yours?” Ben asked when I brought a single onion bagel to the coffee table in the foyer with a side of cream cheese and set it in front of him alongside a glass of orange juice. “Aren’t you eating?”
“I’m going into town,” I told him. “I think it’s best if I get back to my routine.”
Ben flattened the bagel beneath his cast to frost it with cream cheese. “So Black Cat Café for breakfast and wandering aimlessly around Falconwood until dinnertime?”
“Actually,” I said, offering no help as he maimed the bagel, “Theo asked me to watch Sammy after school.”
“Does she have to work longer today?”
“She has to work longer every day,” I said. “Her landlord raised her rent, so I’m helping out with Sammy.”
Ben halted his crushing bagel work to look up at me. “You agreed to take the kid every day? Are you his nanny now? Is she paying you?”
I gathered my coat from the hook at the front door in an attempt to indicate that this conversation was over. “I’m trying to help my friend out. That’s all.”
The Haunting of Abram Mansion Page 15