“It smells like clean,” Lynn said brusquely. “Mother and I made that ourselves. That’s hard work, so don’t you be wasting it.”
Lucy closed her grip around the soap. “Where’s your mama?”
“Dead.”
The little girl nodded and stopped asking questions. Young as she was, she understood that the conversation ended there.
Lynn cleared her throat. “All right then. You clean up good. Wash your hair with this.” She handed Lucy a bottle filled with a green gel. “Let it sit for a bit before your rinse off.”
The girl bit down an objection when she saw the picture of a dog on the bottle, but took it meekly enough.
“Toss your clothes out in the hall,” Lynn continued. “I’ll be burning them.” There was no response so she slid out the door.
“Wait!” The anxious call brought her back.
“What is it?”
“I can’t do these,” the girl said, pointing to her shoelaces.
Lynn sighed and plopped onto the floor next to the girl. “It’s not so hard,” she said. “You just pull on the loose end. Didn’t your mama teach you that?”
“I can untie my shoe,” Lucy objected haughtily. “They just won’t come off.”
Without asking for an explanation, Lynn tugged on the laces. The rotten ends fell off in her hands. “Sit still,” she ordered, and went to the kitchen for a knife. The rest of the laces split easily under the blade. She gripped the shoe and was about to tug it off when the girl cried out, digging her fingernails into the bar of soap.
“What’s the problem?”
The girl only shook her head, biting down on her lip as Lynn slid the sneaker off her tiny foot. The bloody, pus-encrusted sock answered her question.
“Kid,” she said, covering her nose against the smell, “how long have you been out there?”
The attic brought back memories that Lynn would have preferred to leave buried. It wasn’t a place they had used often, only when putting away the clothes Lynn had outgrown and finding the box that held her next size. Mother had always called it “going shopping,” and encouraged Lynn to try on everything as soon as she found the right box. It had been a game of sorts, one of the few times Mother would rest, reclining on an old chair propped in the corner as Lynn tossed clothes everywhere in her excitement. Clothes. Clothes and shoes.
Lynn was guessing as she made her way through the antique trunks Mother had used for storage. Lucy couldn’t be nearly the size she had been when she was five. It might be best to go for a size lower. She popped the lid on the right trunk, glancing through the contents for something for the girl to put on when she was out of the tub.
“Something warm, something warm,” Lynn muttered to herself as she tossed aside clothes. The rain continued to fall, pounding out a staccato beat on the roof of the attic. What little light there was came from a small circular window. A pair of shoes rolled out of the pile of clothes she was holding and rattled to the floor. She considered them briefly, but tossed them aside. Lucy’s feet had practically become a part of her shoes, the sides had burst long ago and water had seeped into them. Judging by the state of her feet, the little girl hadn’t complained, so no one had told her to take her socks off and dry them.
She made a pile of warm clothes, choosing only two or three outfits. Lucy wasn’t moving in, she reminded herself firmly, she was only staying until . . . until when? The look the boy had shot her yesterday had said Lucy’s mother wasn’t going to make it. Once he was free, would the boy move on or stay to care for the little girl? Lynn hadn’t thought past the initial action of taking Lucy with her, when Eli’s gray eyes had begged her to. Suddenly angry with herself, Lynn snagged two pairs of warm socks out of the trunk and slammed the lid shut.
A high-pitched singing filled the downstairs, along with splashing noises. Lynn paused before opening the door; the unencumbered sound of happiness was so odd to her that she allowed Lucy’s off-pitch, unfamiliar tune to fill her ears, like the rising sound of the filling water tanks. A massive splash and wasted water cresting over the edge of the tub made her crack the door to the bathroom.
“Hey in there, you need to be getting out soon. Water’ll get cold and I don’t need you sick on top of everything. I gotta see to your feet as it is.”
There was a long pause. “Will it hurt? My feet?”
“Probably,” Lynn answered, thinking of the flaps of skin that had peeled off along with the socks.
“I think I’ll stay in a little bit more.”