Not a Drop to Drink

Nine

The girl slept through the morning, and Lynn took the opportunity to confirm the fact that she did have lice. And fleas. She heaved a long sigh as she rocked back on her heels, contemplating the work to be done. The girl could bathe in water straight from the pond. It would have to be warmed on the cookstove, then carried upstairs to the bathroom. She took one of Mother’s huge canning pots down from a hook in the ceiling. It would take a very hot fire and a lot of time to boil the amount of water necessary for cleaning the bedding.

She made her first trip to the pond as a ribbon of pink was appearing on the horizon. A pistol was tucked into her belt, but Lynn was satisfied that nothing—and no one—was roaming in the grass. The onset of fall and lack of rain had dried everything to a crisp, making any movement a crackling announcement of your presence. The sight of the pond’s gravelly bank didn’t improve her mood. A fresh, new ribbon of shiny broken mussel shells and small rocks showed where the pond had recently receded. The white grip of her bucket handle loomed ever closer to the surface.

Lynn toyed with the idea of leaning in to grab it, removing forever the implied threat at the sight of it. But without it she was lost. All ponds have a bottom; she could only hope that hers was still well beneath the surface. If Mother had known exactly how deep the pond was, she had never told Lynn. The bucket handle was the only frame of reference she had.

Her boot stuck in the fresh mire near the pond’s edge as she struggled up the bank. It came free with a sucking sound and sent her reeling forward, dumping half a bucket of freezing water down her leg. “Son of a bitch!” She screamed the worst thing she’d ever heard Mother say, then kicked the bucket in anger, which only resulted in splashing her with more cold water.

Miserable and wet, she filled two more buckets and struggled toward the house with them. The basement air was warm and welcoming after the biting cold of the fall morning. Lynn peeled her wet clothes off and hung them from the rafters, put on fresh clothes and filled the stove pot with cold water. More wood went into the stove, and she checked her indoor supply. Low. Nearly out. She’d have to haul more before the end of the day if she was going to get the girl clean, her sheets sanitized, and a large enough fire to keep them warm through the night.

She considered waking the girl up and making her help, but the tiny little wrist hanging over the edge of her cot stopped her. It wasn’t much thicker than the kindling she used to start fires. If she asked her to haul wood, it might snap. Once she started throwing wood in through the window it would wake her. Lynn decided to give her a few more moments’ rest.

It was cold enough for her to slide mittens on to shield her fingers from the frigid metal of the antennae as she climbed to the roof. There was nothing to the south. Lynn rested her binoculars on her chest. She hadn’t heard gunshots lately; the men were not hunting, though three weeks ago they’d been desperate enough to steal a few cans of food from a young girl and a pregnant woman.

There was nothing from the Streamers’ camp. They were the Streamers again, nicely impersonal. Lynn chose not to think of them as Eli and Neva. Especially with no smoke rising after such a cold night.

She raised the binoculars again and searched for Stebbs, not finding him. If he was off gathering water at his mysterious source, she might be able to spot him on the return trip. Half an hour passed with no movement. Disappointed, she laid the binoculars on the shingles beside her. Twenty minutes later, a thread of worry had traced its way through her heart. Was he injured? Had she been too forceful with him last night when she threw him off balance? Had she hurt his leg?

A flash of red caught her attention and she snapped the binoculars back up. Stebbs emerged from inside, yawning and stretching. He patted his midsection a few times before sitting down on a large stump near his door. Lynn checked the sun. It was nearly ten in the morning. “Lazy asshole,” she muttered.

A rustling sound and the flight of several disturbed grasshoppers caught her attention and Lynn dropped the binoculars, snapping the rifle up to her shoulder. Below, Lucy burst out of a clump of grass, empty palms desperately smacking at the grasshoppers. A lump formed in Lynn’s throat.

“Hey,” she yelled toward the ground. “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

Lucy looked around, trying to find her.

“Up here,” Lynn called. “I’m on the roof.”

The little girl shaded her eyes and waved when she saw Lynn. “I don’t have to do what?”

“Eat grasshoppers,” Lynn explained as she climbed down the antennae. “I’ve got real food here.”

The girl made a face. “I wasn’t going to eat them. Who eats grasshoppers?”

“Uh, nobody I guess,” Lynn fumbled, forgetting that the boy had never fessed up to Lucy about what he was feeding her.

“I was catching them for you,” Lucy continued. “Eli always was saying that they made Mama happy, so I should catch as many as I could. I thought maybe they’d make you happy too.”

“It would make me happy if you didn’t come busting out of the grass like that,” Lynn said. “Don’t surprise me when I’ve got a gun. I don’t want to—”

She broke off, unable to speak around the lump that had gotten bigger.

“You don’t wanna what?”

“I don’t want to shoot you by accident.”

It began to rain. A lovely blessing for many reasons. Years ago, Mother had the insight to run a drainpipe from the roof down into the bathroom. The jagged edge of the rusty pipe was jammed with a piece of flannel that Lynn jerked free. A tide of rusted water and leaf debris came first, spilling into the bucket she’d brought. Once the rainwater ran clear she let it fall down into the tub to supplement the hot water she’d dragged up from the basement.

“Wuzzat?” Lucy’s nose wrinkled at the smell of the rotted leaves in the bucket.

“Just rotting stuff,” Lynn said, swirling her hand through the water to test the temperature. “This’ll even out in a second, and I’ll plug the pipe so it’s not dripping rainwater on your head.”

The girl shrugged her indifference and continued to pick at a scab on her knee. “Why don’t you turn on the faucet?”

Lynn sighed and rested her head on the side of the tub. “I told you, I don’t have running water. That’s why I was dragging buckets up from the basement.”

The mundane task of boiling water had brought quizzical Lucy to the edge of the cookstove, climbing onto a chair to pinpoint the exact moment the bubbles started forming on the surface. “How do I know when it’s boiling?”

The question had brought Lynn to an abrupt halt. “I don’t know, ’cause it’s . . . boiling.” The answer hadn’t satisfied Lucy, so Lynn had explained the concept of bubbles and steam. “Haven’t you ever boiled water?”

“No,” Lucy had said defensively. “Why would I?”

That response combined with the request to turn on the faucets caused Lynn’s own curiosity to flutter. “Where are you from anyway? What were you doing out in the woods?”

“Entargo,” the girl answered, testing the water with her fingertips.

Lynn stopped stirring the water. “Entargo,” she repeated. “The big city?”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, blissfully unaware of the effect her answer had. “We lived there my whole life, ’til we had to leave.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Don’t know. We just did.”

Lynn hadn’t known many people in her life, but the flat line of the girl’s mouth was familiar enough to her. There would be no more conversation along that line.

Lynn stuffed the flannel rag back into the end of the drainpipe, ignoring the spray that spattered her as she fought against the flow. She dug into the linen cupboard for a thin washcloth and a bar of flat white soap, handing them to the girl.

Lucy looked at the bar in her hand. “What’s this for?”

“It’s soap. To wash with.”

The girl looked dubiously at the bar, then sniffed it. “It doesn’t smell like the soap from home.”

“It smells like clean,” Lynn said brusquely. “Mother and I made that ourselves. That’s hard work, so don’t you be wasting it.”

Lucy closed her grip around the soap. “Where’s your mama?”

“Dead.”

The little girl nodded and stopped asking questions. Young as she was, she understood that the conversation ended there.

Lynn cleared her throat. “All right then. You clean up good. Wash your hair with this.” She handed Lucy a bottle filled with a green gel. “Let it sit for a bit before your rinse off.”

The girl bit down an objection when she saw the picture of a dog on the bottle, but took it meekly enough.

“Toss your clothes out in the hall,” Lynn continued. “I’ll be burning them.” There was no response so she slid out the door.

“Wait!” The anxious call brought her back.

“What is it?”

“I can’t do these,” the girl said, pointing to her shoelaces.

Lynn sighed and plopped onto the floor next to the girl. “It’s not so hard,” she said. “You just pull on the loose end. Didn’t your mama teach you that?”

“I can untie my shoe,” Lucy objected haughtily. “They just won’t come off.”

Without asking for an explanation, Lynn tugged on the laces. The rotten ends fell off in her hands. “Sit still,” she ordered, and went to the kitchen for a knife. The rest of the laces split easily under the blade. She gripped the shoe and was about to tug it off when the girl cried out, digging her fingernails into the bar of soap.

“What’s the problem?”

The girl only shook her head, biting down on her lip as Lynn slid the sneaker off her tiny foot. The bloody, pus-encrusted sock answered her question.

“Kid,” she said, covering her nose against the smell, “how long have you been out there?”

The attic brought back memories that Lynn would have preferred to leave buried. It wasn’t a place they had used often, only when putting away the clothes Lynn had outgrown and finding the box that held her next size. Mother had always called it “going shopping,” and encouraged Lynn to try on everything as soon as she found the right box. It had been a game of sorts, one of the few times Mother would rest, reclining on an old chair propped in the corner as Lynn tossed clothes everywhere in her excitement. Clothes. Clothes and shoes.

Lynn was guessing as she made her way through the antique trunks Mother had used for storage. Lucy couldn’t be nearly the size she had been when she was five. It might be best to go for a size lower. She popped the lid on the right trunk, glancing through the contents for something for the girl to put on when she was out of the tub.

“Something warm, something warm,” Lynn muttered to herself as she tossed aside clothes. The rain continued to fall, pounding out a staccato beat on the roof of the attic. What little light there was came from a small circular window. A pair of shoes rolled out of the pile of clothes she was holding and rattled to the floor. She considered them briefly, but tossed them aside. Lucy’s feet had practically become a part of her shoes, the sides had burst long ago and water had seeped into them. Judging by the state of her feet, the little girl hadn’t complained, so no one had told her to take her socks off and dry them.

She made a pile of warm clothes, choosing only two or three outfits. Lucy wasn’t moving in, she reminded herself firmly, she was only staying until . . . until when? The look the boy had shot her yesterday had said Lucy’s mother wasn’t going to make it. Once he was free, would the boy move on or stay to care for the little girl? Lynn hadn’t thought past the initial action of taking Lucy with her, when Eli’s gray eyes had begged her to. Suddenly angry with herself, Lynn snagged two pairs of warm socks out of the trunk and slammed the lid shut.

A high-pitched singing filled the downstairs, along with splashing noises. Lynn paused before opening the door; the unencumbered sound of happiness was so odd to her that she allowed Lucy’s off-pitch, unfamiliar tune to fill her ears, like the rising sound of the filling water tanks. A massive splash and wasted water cresting over the edge of the tub made her crack the door to the bathroom.

“Hey in there, you need to be getting out soon. Water’ll get cold and I don’t need you sick on top of everything. I gotta see to your feet as it is.”

There was a long pause. “Will it hurt? My feet?”

“Probably,” Lynn answered, thinking of the flaps of skin that had peeled off along with the socks.

“I think I’ll stay in a little bit more.”

“C’mon now,” Lynn said, pushing her way into the bathroom. “You’ve been in there long enough.”

Lucy’s frail body floated on the surface of the tepid water. Her ribs stuck out so far that water had rushed into the valleys in between them. More dead skin had sloughed off her feet in the water; strips of it trailed from her heel. Lynn wrapped her in a towel, astonished at the lack of weight in her arms. The girl burrowed into her cotton fortress and admired her new outfits while Lynn picked through her hair for dead lice and nits. There had been a thriving civilization on Lucy’s head, and it took the better part of the afternoon to rid her of them.

Lynn saved the feet for last, once Lucy was happily snuggled into her basement cot and eating corn. The warm bath combined with food and the heat from the fire lulled her. Lynn waited until she had fallen asleep, her small hand still tightly gripping the spoon. Her feet were a mess. Dead skin hung in flaps from blisters long since burst, a fungal infection covered most of her left sole, and all her toenails had grown inward in response to the shoes that hadn’t left her feet. It was a miracle that the girl could still walk.

The dead skin came off first, Lucy’s feet twitched in response but there was no real pain. The baking soda paste Lynn used on the fungus caused her to whimper a little, but she soon quieted. The toenails presented a real problem. Cutting them out was going to be painful. Three of her toes were inflamed with the pressure, two of them had pus-filled cysts under the skin. It would have to wait until Stebbs was there to hold her down.

There was a small supply of painkillers hidden away with the guns, but Lynn could never remember using them. When she was about Lucy’s age one of her eardrums had burst from an infection. It had swollen so tightly that the eventual rupture had spewed pus, blood, and small pieces of her eardrum. She’d held her tongue tightly against the pain, knowing that Mother had been splinting her own broken ankle a week before without so much as a Tylenol.

Lynn’s hand snuck to her ear as she remembered. Mother had been furious with her, even as she had sponged the stinking mess of pus from her face. “You should have told me,” she’d seethed. “I would have given you something.”

But Lynn was partly deaf at the time, and Mother’s words had been muffled. They were both saving the pain medications against another day, a different, more horrible wound. The fever had passed, her eardrum had grown back, and the painkillers remained untouched. Lynn pressed one of Lucy’s infected toes experimentally, and the girl whimpered in her sleep. Lucy had done the same, hidden her pain to save others the worry.

Lynn pulled the covers down over the small white feet, tucking them under her heels. “When it’s time, we’ll use the medicine, little one,” she said softly. “You don’t need to suffer more than you have.”