Page 30 of Hush, Little Baby

The words slip out naturally in an approving rumble.

Charlie freezes, and his eyes dart up to mine, huge and glossy, and for one brief, illuminating second, the terror parts around something else. Want, perhaps, or maybe recognition. The wounded, starved little part of him peeking out from behind the adult mask and going still at the sound of a language it understands too well.

Then shame slams down over it.

He looks away so fast it must hurt his neck. “Don’t say that.”

I smile at the way the tips of his ears have gone pink, but say nothing, and continue lowering him into the tub, keeping a supportive hand under his elbow until the water closes around him. The gold shimmer of bath oil spreads across the surface in delicate ribbons. Steam dampens his hair at the temples, loosening those tired strands until they cling to his cheeks.

He sits upright and stiff, knees drawn toward his chest, arms folded defensively around himself beneath the water.

I roll up my sleeves, and his gaze snaps to the movement.

“I can do it,” he says instantly.

“I know.”

The answer throws him off. “Then let me.”

“No.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “Why do you keep saying no?”

“Because I can.”

His responding laugh breaks into a sob.

I pick up one of the hotel’s cloths, soak it in the warm water, and wring it out until it stops dripping. When I bring it toward his shoulder, he flinches, but not as badly this time.

“Look at me,” I say.

He does not.

“Charlie.”

His eyes drag up reluctantly.

“You are going to sit still and breathe. If the water gets too hot or too cold, you will tell me. If you feel faint, sick, dizzy, or strange in any way, you will tell me immediately. Do you understand?”

His mouth parts, and there it is again, that flicker of bewilderment at being given instructions to let someone else shoulder his weight.

“Do you understand?” I repeat.

He swallows. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

The question is deliberate.

His face flushes. Anger twitches at the corner of his mouth, fragile and exhausted, but there. “I’m not calling you that,” he mutters.

I smile. Not because he refuses, but because he knows exactly what I am asking for. “Not tonight, then.”

His eyes narrow, suspicious of the concession, but as I drag the washcloth gently over his forearm, his face loses that expression quickly.

Such a small thing, washing someone. Almost mundane. Water, cloth, skin. An act repeated a thousand ways across a thousand ordinary lives. Parents with children. Lovers after long days. Nurses with the ill and elderly.

For Charlie, it may as well be a battlefield.