Page 34 of Hush, Little Baby

“No, you don’t. You can’t. You’re just—” His voice breaks. He swallows, tries again, and fails to make it stronger. “You’re deciding everything like I’m not even here.”

“You are here,” I say. “That’s why I’m deciding carefully.”

He laughs once, wet and miserable. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does to me.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

“I mean it!”

“I believe you.”

He presses his forehead to his knees, arms wrapped tightly around his legs beneath the water. For a moment, he looks so small that even my own certainty feels like too much weight to place on him. Not guilt. I am not sentimental enough for that, and regret has never been a language I learned fluently. But there is an awareness in me, a precise, clinical understanding that what I am doing is breaking his life open to rearrange it while he is still inside it.

The difference between better men and me is that I do not stop.

I only try to make sure he lands somewhere soft.

I pick up the conditioner. “Head back.”

He shakes it instead, forehead still pressed to his knees. “No.”

“Charlie, baby.”

“No.”

I wait, watching as his shoulders tremble. He expects me to force him. Not unreasonably. I have forced plenty already tonight. His nakedness. The bath. The truth, or a portion of it. But force is a tool, not a principle, and I dislike using the same one too often when another may work better.

“Would you like to hold the cloth over your eyes?” I ask, then reach to the rack, take a clean washcloth, dampen it with warm water, and fold it once. I hold it within reach without touching him.

He does not move for several seconds.

Then one hand emerges from the water, hesitant and pale, fingers wrinkling at the tips. He takes the cloth from me as if it might be a trick. When nothing happens, he presses it over his eyes and leans back a little, not really enough, but enough for me to work with.

“There,” I murmur. “Better.”

I condition his hair with unhurried, thorough strokes, working through the ends, separating tangles with my fingers rather than a comb. It requires a ridiculous amount of patience. More than I have given in most business deals. More than I have given to men begging for their lives.

7

Nikolaus

Charlie’s breathing turns uneven, but not from panic this time. He is tired. Drifting despite himself. Every few seconds, his chin dips, and then he jerks awake, clutching the cloth more tightly to his face.

“You can sleep soon,” I tell him.

“I’m not sleeping.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Because you don’t want to, or because you’re afraid?”

He doesn’t answer.