Fenton has a bad feeling. He is standing outside the back door, his hand on the doorknob, gathering his strength. He listens.
Nothing.
Not a sound.
He takes a deep breath and opens the door into the kitchen. Tammy is not there.
The table is gleaming clean. The chairs are pushed in. The floor has been swept and mopped. He removes his boots and places them on the mat, as he has been told to do hundreds, possibly thousands, of times. He is not always good at remembering things. He pads across the kitchen to the living room. Tammy is not there, either.
He looks down the hallway and sees that the bathroom door is closed. But there is no sound. He steps closer, creeping as quietly as he can. He places his ear against the door. The sound of water dripping into a full tub, a ripple of movement in the water.
A quiet moan, a sniff.
Fenton draws back from the door, spooked. “Tammy?”
No answer.
“Tammy, you OK?” Fenton is scared now. He feels like a child, standing there in his sock feet in the hallway.
“Just come in, Fenton.” He barely hears it. She says: “Just come in already.”
Fenton opens the door cautiously, as though something might spring out at him. Nothing about this feels right. He looks in to see Tammy, beautiful Tammy, lying in the bath. Her head, her nipples, and her knees are the only parts of her above the water line, like little islands scattered across the surface. The air is warm and humid, making his shirt cling to his chest. Fenton is not usually allowed into the bathroom when Tammy is in the bath. He is not usually allowed to see her naked in the daylight anymore. Not since she told him to stop coming to the bar. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. And then there is another surprise: she looks at him with love in her eyes. And tears.
Now he is truly afraid.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
“I love you, Fenton.”
This can’t be good, he thinks. “Jesus Christ.” Fenton sits on the lid of the toilet. He looks at his feet. Prays to stay conscious, not to succumb to the strangeness that can overtake him sometimes. He wants to see everything, hear everything. Something important is happening.
Tammy laughs. She wipes her eyes. “Come on in here, babe. There’s room.” She sits up to make space for him at the drain end of the tub. Fenton takes off his socks and unbuckles his belt, drops his pants to the floor. Tammy is still smiling at him and tears are running down her cheeks. He pulls his shirt off and dips a toe into the hot water. He eases himself in and the water threatens to overflow. They are careful not to slosh around too much as they find a way to make all four of their legs fit together comfortably. Fenton has to sit to the side to avoid the faucet. His neck hurts as he looks at her beautiful face. “What’s going on?”
A sob like a shout comes out of her and startles him. He holds her feet in his hands under the water. She shakes her head. “I want to go home, Fenton. I want to see my baby.”
She is weeping now, gasping for air. Fenton strains forward to reach her, to take her in his arms, but he can only reach around her bent knees. He pulls himself up, using the sides of the tub. He splashes around noisily, awkwardly rearranging himself until he is kneeling between her legs. Water splashes over the edge of the tub and onto the floor as he reaches down and pries her away from the back of the tub. He pulls her slippery shuddering body close and waits.
He just holds her and waits until she tells him what to do next.