Chapter 37 ~ Bubbles

I woke on the couch, as dawn’s light spread through the apartment.

On my way to the bathroom, I glanced into the kitchen, where I found the light blinking on the answering machine. I stepped in, punched the button, waited for the pause, listened.

“Asshole.”

Ivvy.

“I just got back in from the longest fucking evening and all you can do is leave me a message saying you’re coming to stay with me? Is that it? After the past few days… What the fuck are you thinking? Asshole.”

A click. She was gone.

I deleted the message on autopilot.

Walked through to the bathroom, eyes blurry with sleep and the hangover.

Left the door open as I took a leak.

“Hi!”

I jumped so high that I almost pissed on the cistern. Twisting to look over my shoulder, I found her standing there. Bella. My daughter. Smiling up at me. Wearing my mother’s Nike work-out top, which dragged on the floor around her feet.

“Just a minute,” I said, quickly rearranging myself.

“Flush!” she commanded.

I complied, then turned to walk over to her; she pointed at the basin.

“Wash!”

I did a little double-take between her and the sink and then realised she was telling me to wash my hands.

Shit, I thought, I’m being lectured by a two-year old kid.

Dutifully, I walked over to the basin and ran the water.

From my side, she laughed.

“Bubbles!”

She was emphatic, and I presumed it was her way of telling me to use soap.

I made a great play of squeezing some of my mother’s liquid soap from the dispenser onto my palms, rubbing up a lather. As I went to rinse, Bella held her hands out.

“What? You want to wash your hands?”

“Bubbles!” She smiled.

“Wash?”

She shook her head.

“Bubbles.”

I looked in her blue eyes, her huge blue eyes, trying to work out just what she wanted.

She must have been wanting to wash her hands; the only logical conclusion. I looked around the bathroom. There was a small wooden stand with a neat stack of towels; Oliveria’s touch again. I pulled it over in front of the basin and then held my hands out to Bella. She ran into them, laughing, and I transferred her to the wooden shelf.

“Thank you,” she said, very prim, very proper.

“You’re welcome,” I smiled at the back of her head.

She grabbed hold of the soap dispenser and squeezed some into her palms; way too much, but she’d done it before I could think to caution her. She began to rub the soap all over her hands and then reached out towards the faucet. She looked up at me. Looked back at the faucet.

I turned the water on.

She rubbed her hands beneath the stream, getting a good, buoyant lather going.

I watched this with some good humour, this play act of washing, her dedication to turning her hands into massive mittens of bubbles. She was intent on her hands, paying me no attention whatsoever. I could have left the room and Bella would have carried on her bubblicious game.

But I was captivated, so I watched her from behind; in the mirror over the basin, I could just see her forehead, furrowed in concentration.

Then suddenly, she stopped rubbing her hands together. Held them in a prayer for a moment. Nodded. Linked her fingers together and pulled her thumbs down until there was a circle between them and her forefingers. She blew into the space and nothing happened.

A little grimace clouded her face for a moment.

She rubbed her hands together again and then reformed the shape. As she blew, more gently this time, a stream of small bubbles flew from her hands towards the mirror.

She squealed with delight.

“Bubbles!”

I couldn’t help laughing.

She did it again. And again. And again. Each time that yelp of pure joy at seeing the bubbles race into the air.

She didn’t try anything else and it became pretty clear that this was something she’d mastered, giving her so much pleasure that she wasn’t about to stop. This was something she’d learned. Something she’d copied from…

Shit, I thought. Suddenly, I wasn’t laughing; very near to tears.

Someone had taught her to do this. Her parents, a brother, sister, I didn’t know, but it was someone who, until a little over a day earlier, had had a child, someone who at that moment was probably staring into an empty bedroom; a crib that hadn’t been used for two nights.

Scattered toys and teddy bears; blankies left unloved.

“Bella,” I spoke past the lump in my throat.

She looked up into the mirror, looked me straight in the eyes.

“Did your Mommy teach you to do that?”

She looked confused for a moment, like I’d spoken a language she had never heard before.

“Mommy?”

I nodded.

“Where Mommy?” she said, turning to look past me. As she did so, she lost her footing and tumbled off the towel stand, soapy hands flailing in front of her. She made to grab the edge of the sink but her hands were too slippery. She crashed to the floor of the bathroom.

Though I dived forward, I was too slow to catch her, ending up on my knees, staring at the tiles by the side of her head; the same tiles that my nose-bleed party-girl had covered with blood back when I was sixteen.

The flashback sight of the red spiders on the white floor was clear and clean but mercifully short.

Bella began to wail; screaming. Tears welled up in her eyes. In between screams, she wasn’t breathing and each time she didn’t inhale I thought she was about to pass out.

A bump the size of a small egg was beginning to form on her forehead.

I gathered her in my arms and began trying to calm her down.

It didn’t work.

“Muh… Muh…”

“Take it easy, Bella, breathe,” I spoke quietly; soothingly, despite the note of panic in my voice.

“Muh… Muh…”

“Shhhhh…”

“Mommy!” She screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Shhhhhh…”

“Mohhhhmmmmmyyyyy!”

“Mommy’s not here, Bella,” I whispered, fighting back tears that had constricted my throat, made my nose run, “Mommy’s not here…”

Now my tears broke free.

We cried in the bathroom, me kneeling, Bella gathered in my arms, sobbing into my shirt, my own tears dripping onto the top of her head.

“Mommy’s not here,” I spoke into her hair, “I’m Kenny.”

“I’m all you’ve got.”

Chapter 38 ~ Ticker

Chapter 36 ~ Void