Chapter 9: The Bath

I folded Martha's letter along its old creases and put it back on top of the pile.

I shut the safe door.

I did it slowly, with my back half turned, so she would see a man tidying and not a man hiding something.

"What was that?" Iris said.

"Your mother's papers."

"The ones from the lawyer?"

"Some of them. Her will, and a letter she wrote me before she died."

That was true, as far as it went.

Her face softened at once.

She came across the room in her bare feet and put her arms around my waist from behind.

"You were reading it," she said. "You were sad."

"A little."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to see."

"It's all right."

"Can I read it someday?"

"When you're ready."

She nodded against my back.

She did not ask what ready meant, or who would decide.

I put my hand over hers, where it rested on my stomach, and I felt like the worst man alive.

Then she turned me around and looked up at me, and what was in her face was not sadness.

"I want a bath," she said. "A big one. With you."

"Iris, it's past one."

"Please."

I looked at her.

"Please" had never worked on me before, and it was working now.

I ran the water as hot as it would go, and I poured in the lavender soap from her catalog.

The tub sat under the window, and the glass was black with the night.

A small lamp on the sill turned the steam gold.

She stood by the tub with her nightgown off and her hair twisted up on her head, and she watched the water rise.

I got in first, and she climbed in after me, facing me, her knees on either side of my hips.

The water rose around us.

She settled against my chest and let out a long happy sigh.

"This is the best lesson," she said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Calls It Love, She Sees It as Home from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.