I stand up and push past her. Go out into the hallway and walk into the kitchen to try to collect myself.
“I had a job too,” she calls from the bathroom. She shuts off the water in the tub and gets in, hissing at the heat.
“What kind of job?” My heart is pounding. I place my hand over it as I wait for her answer.
“I was a dog walker.”
I smile, then huff out a small laugh. “When was this?”
“Oh…” She hisses again. Then I think she goes under. But a few seconds later there’s that sound people make when they resurface and then some sputtering. “Like… last year, I think.”
“Last year? What have you been doing since then?”
She sighs in the other room. Says nothing. So I go back down the hallway and now it’s my turn to lean against the doorjamb. I fold my arms and wait her out.
She’s sitting in the tub the same way she was sitting on the couch. Knees pulled up. Hugging herself. Bubbles up to her shoulders. Staring straight ahead at the subway tiles on the wall. Her hair is wet and slicked back over her head and her teeth are chattering a little.
“I’m not really sure, McKay.” She wipes her hand over her eyes to get the water out and then looks at me.
“That’s OK.” I say it softly to soothe her. “It’s fine. You don’t need to remember. You’re here and so… so you’re here and it’s fine.” I’m talking in circles because that’s what this feels like. One. Endless. Circle.
She frowns and nods. “That is why I’m here. I need you to help me. Adam, you know. He took him and…”
“I’ll handle it,” I interrupt her. Because whatever is going through her head about Nathan St. James right now, it’s got nothing to do with Adam.
Or reality, for that matter.
She nods again, still frowning. “Will you wash my hair for me?”
This is something she talked me into doing a lot when she was small. Until Donovan told me to stop. I liked it though. I like taking care of her. I don’t know if it helps her, but it helps me. And I like it. So I did it back then and I’m gonna do it now too.
“Sure.” I walk into the bathroom and sit down on the toilet lid. I swing my legs to the side, just like I used to, and squirt some of the cheap strawberry shampoo onto the top of her head.
She sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. Then glances up at me with a smile.
I smile back and start working the shampoo into her hair, my fingers gently massaging her scalp just the way she likes it.
She slides her body sideways so she’s leaning against the side of the tub, making it easier for me to reach her. And she’s still so fucking small she can do this without effort. Just tuck her legs up to her chest and fold herself into a little bundle of girl.
But she relaxes. I can see it in the way her shoulders drop. The way her head drops too. She rests her chin on her knees and even though I can’t see her face, I know her eyes are closed.
“I’m going to keep you,” I whisper.
She nods. Doesn’t reply.
“And we’re gonna figure this out, OK?”
She nods again. Then her hand comes up and wipes her eye. She digs her palm into it. Rubs it. I know she’s crying. Indie isn’t the kind of girl who cries so I pretend it’s not happening.
I’m good at pretending too. We’re all experts in pretending now.
I take a good long time to wash her hair. I like doing it as much as she likes me to do it. And it’s been years since we’ve had a moment like this. But eventually I have to admit I’m done. “Close your eyes,” I tell her, then reach for the cup sitting next to the sink.
Usually I’d use a small bowl for this part but I don’t want to leave her like this. I don’t think she’d get up and walk out, but why take chances, so I use the cup.
She tips her head back and holds one hand over her eyes as I pour water down the back of her head. Over, and over, and over. Until there are no more suds.
Indie tsks her tongue. “You don’t have conditioner, do you?”
“No. But I’ll pick some up tomorrow, if you want.”
“My hair will be a rat’s nest.”
I smile at that. Because that’s what Adam used to say when she didn’t want to brush her hair. Fuckin’ rat’s nest, Indie. Go brush it out!
But it hurt to brush it out because it was a rat’s nest, so she always balked. She was a wild, feral little girl. Most evenings she’d come home for dinner covered in leaves. Twigs hanging from her hair. Mud on her cheeks and scratches all over her arms and legs. Usually a frog or two in her pockets. She kept a frog in her jewelry box for three days once. Before Adam found it and made her take it back to the swamp.
I called her Swamp Thing because that’s where we lived. Adam’s old… whatever you call it. Not really a plantation because our land was surrounded on two sides by the twisting bend of the marshy Old Pearl River and there was no hope of growing anything profitable out there. Nothing but acres and acres of cypress trees, and duckweed, and spider lilies. But our house was an old mansion that reminded you, every moment of the day, that you were in Louisiana.
Sometimes I just called her Thing, for short. And when she got older it was Miss Thang or Little Thang. With a little extra Southern drawl at the end because she liked the idea of being from the South, even though she wasn’t.
“I’ll comb it out for you.” I say this both in the past and in the here and now. “You want me to do that now? Or after you get out?”
“Now.” Her chin is still propped up on her knees and I have a feeling her eyes are open now. Literally. Not metaphorically.
She always picks ‘now’. Never wants to get out of the tub until I make her.
I wish we had gotten her earlier. Before she was ten. I’d like to have known her from the beginning. I like her all the ways she is, but I still find myself wishing for those first ten years of her life that I missed.
A lot happened in those ten years and I just… wish I was there. Not that I could’ve changed anything. I don’t wield that kind of power. But at least I would know things. At least I’d know what really happened to her before Adam took her away from all that.
Our relationship is weird. I get that. Donovan has told me so many times in so many ways that nothing about us is normal and there’s no way to make it right. And I never needed him to tell me that. I knew it. We all knew what we were doing with her—to her—it was always wrong. So I really do get it. And once Donovan finds out she’s here with me he’ll be knocking on my door so fast my head will spin.
But I just don’t fucking care anymore.
You can’t help who you love and I love this girl more than life itself. I will do anything to make her happy. Anything. Even go along with this new plan she’s cooking up for Adam.
Because I hate that I helped shape her into this broken little thang and there’s a part of me that wants to take it all back.
But here’s the real truth.
And I’m not sure I’d admit it to anyone but myself, but…
There’s an even bigger part of me that wants to do it all again.
CHAPTER TWO - ADAM