The Water Keeper(20)

She slid her feet onto the floor and I helped her stand. I couldn’t figure out if she trusted me because she had no one else or because she was so delirious she didn’t know better. Regardless, she leaned on me as I dragged her into the bathroom. While steam wafted above us, she stepped into the warm shower and just stood while the tub filled with red and mud and pieces of oyster shell.

When she was ready, I slowly pulled the towel from her shoulders, exposing fifty cuts and a myriad of tiny oyster pieces stuck in her skin. Evidently, her landing had skidded her across an oyster shoal. She turned to expose a shredded shirt and sliced back. I helped her out of her shirt and stood back while she leaned against the wall and allowed the warm water to wash down her back. Tabby stood next to the tub, tail wagging. I grabbed the bloody towels and set them aside, allowing the tub to drain. For three or four minutes, she just stood. Finally, she sank to her bottom and sat on the floor of the tub, head on her knees, while the water and steam brought her back to life.

I needed to pick the oyster pieces out of her back, so I pushed the control knob and converted the water from the shower to the tub spout. I sat on the edge of the tub. “Are you tough?”

She nodded without looking at me. I pushed in the stopper and began picking out the mud and oyster shells as she leaned against her knees. As the water in the tub turned a deeper red, I cleaned her back. Halfway through the process, she braced herself on the edge of the tub where Tabby took the opportunity to lick her hand clean. She hung her hand around his neck and allowed me to finish the process—which took the better part of an hour. When I’d finished her back, I said, “Can you stand?”

She did, and I continued washing the sides and backs of her legs. When I got her as clean as I could get her, I said, “I’m going to grab some clothes from the boat. You okay if I leave?”

She nodded without looking at me.

I grabbed a bag of clothes from the port side storage where I found the attendant watching my boat like an eagle. “Anyplace around here open this time of night? Food or something?”

He thought. Then shook his head. “Lots of bars.”

“Anything else?”

“Grocery store. ’Bout a half mile that way.”

“Thanks.”

I walked to the store where the sign on the door read, “No shirt, no shoes, no problem.” I walked in and found them closing up for the night, so I made a trip through the deli. I bought a fried chicken. Some cold chicken salad. A few apples. A mug of soup. Some mac ’n’ cheese. Some saltine crackers and some applesauce. I topped it off with a bottle of wine and some Gatorade and herbal tea. I exited through the pharmacy, picking up antibiotic ointment, Band-Aids, gauze, pain pills to help with the swelling, and hydrogen peroxide. If she didn’t hate me already, she would when I finished putting all that on her back.

I knocked, let myself in, and found her in the bed, lying on her side. Her back was bare. Arms crossed in front of her chest. Head on a pillow. The sheet covered her legs and most of her chest. She was still staring south through the wall—the direction she’d been heading when all this happened. I pulled a chair up next to the bed and showed her the ointment and peroxide. She nodded. I soaked a gauze roll and began patting her cuts clean. Doing so took some time. I continued until there were no more bubbles. Then I smeared antibiotic ointment onto all the cuts, which by my count were somewhere close to a hundred. They wrapped over her shoulder and onto the top of her collarbone and chest. It was impossible to cover each with a bandage without turning her into a mummy, so I didn’t. When I finished, she slid the sheet off and I doctored the slices on her legs.

She’d live, but the next few days wouldn’t be fun. As I worked, she never winced, suggesting either she’d known much pain or something in her hurt more than my doctoring.

I took out the food and set it on a chair before her. She reached for nothing. I opened the soup and offered a spoonful. She sat up, gently grabbed the mug, and sipped. Not taking her eyes off me. I opened the saltines and set them next to her on the bed.

I tried to make conversation. “You auditioning for the circus?”

She nodded and managed a whisper. “Evidently.”

“What were you doing out there on open water in a boat the size of a bathtub?”

She shook her head.

“The guys at the marina are gonna be hacked when they find out their boat is at the bottom of the ditch.”

She said nothing.

When she finished the soup, I offered her a mug of microwaved herbal tea. She accepted it, hovered over it. Sipping gently. The moon shone in through our window. Her convulsive cries had been replaced by shallow, controlled breaths.

“You picked a nice night for a swim.” Trying to bring a smile.

She leaned her head back and laughed. At herself. “I can’t swim.”

That explained a good bit. “Really?”

She was staring into her mug when she spoke. “Never learned.”

“You mean to tell me you stole a boat, navigated thirty minutes south of here having never had your hand on the tiller, and you can’t swim?”

She placed a hand on her ribs, winced, and nodded.

“Seriously?”

A shrug.

“What were you planning to do had you gone overboard?”

Again only her eyes moved. “No plan for that.”