The Belly of the Beast

 

GRANDMA SISSY HAD one of those old-fashioned bathtubs that was raised up from the floor by four clawed feet, each clutching a ball. The hot and cold water came out of two separate spouts rather than mixing together in the faucet and coming out warm.

Odette plugged the drain with the rubber stopper that hung from a chain on the edge of the bathtub and then cranked on both faucets, getting the temperature just right. Then she pulled off her wet clothes and found a fluffy towel in the cabinet next to the toilet. She had just dunked her toes in the filling tub when she remembered the bath salts. The medicine cabinet was old-fashioned too, painted mint green, with a beveled mirror on the front made of wavy glass, and a tiny twist lock to open it.

Inside, the three shelves were carefully arranged, with powders and perfumes on the bottom shelf, bath salts and oils on the second, and on the top, clear orange plastic pill bottles, each wrapped in a sticker from the pharmacy detailing the name of the medication and instructions for use. Odette wondered if one of the bottles held the pills that Grandma Sissy could take when she decided it was time to die.

Was that selfish—to die on purpose and leave people behind, people who loved you? Was it selfish of Odette to want Grandma Sissy to stay, despite her pain? A rush of heat flooded Odette as she considered taking all the bottles and opening them, shaking the pills into the toilet and flushing them away. She could do it. It would only take a moment.

Instead, Odette took the bath salts and closed the cabinet. She watched her hand as if it were someone else’s, unstopping the jar and shaking the purple crystals into the water.

The water steamed around her legs as Odette stepped into the tub. Slowly, she lowered herself in. Remembering the tub’s four clawed feet, Odette imagined she had climbed inside the belly of a great beast. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the bathtub’s curved edge.

Suddenly she thought of Mieko’s cat. He had been hit by a car two summers ago. The car hadn’t killed him, but it had crushed his back legs and broken his back, and the vet had said the cat would never be able to walk again. And Odette remembered how sad that was, but also how glad she’d been that the vet could help him die.

If Grandma Sissy were a cat, or even an ape, or a dog, or a ferret—then the answer would be easy. An animal in pain had to be put to sleep.

But Grandma Sissy wasn’t an ape, or a dog, or a ferret, or a cat. She was a grandmother. She was a mother, and a baker, and a friend.