Your mother teaches you the rituals of bathing. First with a rubber duckie, then with Mr. Bubble, then with rose-scented crystals that come packaged with a satin bow on top. No one was ever allowed to bathe you but her. She didn’t trust anyone to follow the rites. These are the secrets that must be passed on from mother to daughter, she says, What would your father know of bath time anyway? He showers in the morning, slaps fresh cheeks with aftershave, combs his hair. A ritual, sure, but not one that’s special.
For herself, once a week she lights candles and closes the door; crumbles foil-wrapped salts into the water, pours a capful of her own bubbles, drops in one of the jewel-like bath beads to dissolve beneath the lather. She lets you watch as she prepares her tub. She tells you the story of a waiter carding her for drinks the last time they went out. They must have thought your father was having a midlife crisis, she says as she ties up her hair in a gold satin scrunchie. They acted like he was dating a teenager!
On your thirteenth birthday she lets you pick one of her bath beads. Stars and orbs and shells, gold and blue and green in a crystal bowl on her bureau. They are almost too beautiful to use. You freeze. Don’t worry, she assures you. I can always get more. Pick your favorite.
You choose a gold star. She drops it into the bath and you watch it dissolve. Your skin is impossibly soft after you get out of the tub. The porcelain is slick. She offers you her hand. Be careful, she warns. Beauty can be dangerous.
Your father comes home early from work. He does not know that you came home sick at midday, that your mother left you in bed while she ran to the store for cough syrup and lozenges. There is someone with him. You recognize her laugh. You open the door to see your old babysitter, Stephanie. She is wearing your mother’s robe. She goes into the bathroom, holding a bottle of French lilac lotion. The water is running. Your father is waiting.
Your mother wilts. Some days she doesn’t even get out of bed. Twenty dollars arrives in a card for Christmas. From your father, now living in Winston-Salem with his brother. Your mom called Stephanie’s parents when you told her and he was gone the next day. You take that twenty dollars and you buy her bath beads from the gift shop you pass on your way home from school. She cries when she sees them. She is aging in front of you. No one cards her at the liquor store anymore. They all know her there.
A box arrives for your mother. Bath beads from overseas, a set of three candles in glass jars like a church on Christmas Eve. The beads are clear ruby red, perfectly round, hypnotic. They give softly beneath your fingertips until she takes the glass jar from your hands. These are for mother only, she says.
The ritual returns.
Your mother looks reborn. Radiant. She draws her bath every night before her bartending shift. Have to look good for my customers, she tells you. Beauty is power in that world. She brings home stacks of cash that she hides in her top drawer.
Levi, in your math class, asks you to the movies. Your first date. He wears a ball chain around his neck and his hair in stiff blonde spikes. You want to look gorgeous. All the girls in your class want to go out with Lyle, but you have a secret weapon.
While she is at work, you light her candles and take the last two beads from the jar on her dresser. She will understand. It’s what she trained you to do. But these beads burn, turn your skin red and dry, crackling, blistering. In the shower you try frantically to scrub it all off before anyone sees. You slather yourself in baby oil to try and soothe the fire. Maybe that’s why your mother warned you off of them. But when you look at yourself in the mirror, all of that is gone. Your skin is soft and peach-pink. You put on Dr. Pepper lip-gloss as you hear the doorbell ring.
Levi buys your ticket, your popcorn, your Junior Mints. He can’t stop looking at you, even in the dark. Even grown men stop and stare. You aren’t sure you like this power. It makes you feel too vulnerable, like a hen among foxes. But Lyle kisses you in the lobby while you wait for his mom to pull up front. He tastes like fake butter and peanuts. That part you like.
When you get home, your mother is furious. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? she demands. You were only following her ritual. You were trying to be like her. You offer to buy her more tomorrow. You can’t replace them, she says as she closes her bedroom door.
In the morning she looks tired and gray, her eyes swollen from crying. At school the girls call you a slut behind your back. Levi leaves you notes in your locker, brings you a Hershey bar at lunch. You are just about to take a bite when Megan slaps it out of your hand and onto the cafeteria floor. When you tell your mother, she just shakes her head. You aren’t ready, she says. For that kind of power.
Your mother sends you to an after-school church group as punishment. She tells you to meet some nice girls there, girls who will be better influences then the ones you meet at school. You wind up spending a lot of time with Jessica, the pastor’s daughter, who wears flowers in her hair and tells you she was a princess in a past life. Guard your chastity like a knight in front of a castle, she says dreamily. Like a security guard protecting a vault full of jewels.
Easy for her to say, your mother replies when you report back. She’s ugly. But she makes you invite Jessica for dinner and sleepovers. You hate every minute of it. Jessica only wants to watch Snow White. Jessica thinks Seventeen is full of sin. Your mother smiles during Jessica-led prayers before dinner. Jessica’s father gawks at your mother when he comes to pick her up in the morning.
But one night, Jessica doesn’t arrive with her sleeping bag and travel-sized Bible. Your relief is palpable but temporary. The police find her body three days later in the creek bed. The water has washed away all the blood, all the evidence. Your relief is replaced by anguish. For the first time in your life, you pray willingly. At least she died a virgin, you tell yourself. That must mean something.
There are no suspects, no one to throw in jail. At night when your mother is at work, you lie awake on the couch watching Nick at Night until the infomercials come on. Poor girl, your mother coos as she does your hair for the funeral. She has refilled the jar on her dresser. At the funeral, all the fathers stare at her, but say nothing.
Your mother is promoted to manager. She has to go out of town for a trade show. You watch as she packs her suitcase. She leaves you money for pizza and tells you to be good. She kisses your head and takes a taxi to the airport, and you are alone for real this time.
Megan asks if she can bring some friends over. She’ll bring one for you, she promises, and she knows you won’t tell. She brings wine coolers and a joint stolen from the Altoids tin on her sister’s desk. Soon the boys show up. Levi comes too, and he brings beer. It’s a far cry from sleepovers with Jessica. You imagine she’s gasping in Heaven as she looks down on all of you.
You drink a strawberry wine cooler and let the buzz take you. You let the smoke from the joint in Megan’s hand give you a contact high. And when Levi asks you to show him your bedroom, you oblige. Being a virgin didn’t save Jessica. No sense in believing it will save you.
The next day your head and thighs hurt. You survey the damage. Someone stole the jar of your mother’s bath beads. You call Megan in a panic, but no one answers. You go to the store and spend the pizza money to buy a new bag of red pearls, all of your allowance on a crystal dish to put them in.
When you put it on your mother’s dresser, you notice a small golden cross tucked inside her jewelry box. Jessica must have left it here, you tell yourself. Or maybe she gave it as a gift, so that your sinful single mother might find salvation. You hang it around your own neck. You need forgiveness now too.
Your mother is exhausted when she gets home. She asks you to draw her a bath and you do so with a rock in your throat. You light the candles and throw in a pearl and a little red food coloring to sell the lie. You fill the tub with bubbles and salt and hope she won’t notice the difference.
But she does notice. She holds up her hand, asks for another. There are veins you didn’t see before, wrinkles around her eyes that look new. You bring her another. It’s not working, she says. She pops one in her hand, clear oil dripping down her arm.
What have you done?
You tell her it was an accident. She rises from the tub, naked and wet. Her skin is red from the dye. Her breasts sag. Long lines draw her mouth down. She is aging in front of you, the same as she did when your father left.
She grabs your hand and her Venus razor, rakes it across the underside of your wrist. You bleed onto her, into the water, screaming so loudly you can’t even hear your own fear. But it does nothing to make her beautiful again. You pull back your hand and grab a towel. I’m not a virgin! you scream outside yourself.
A banshee howl arises from her throat. Her fingers curl on your wrist, but her grip is weak. Her skin begins to flake off like campfire ash. The wrinkles become deeper, the water evaporates off her skin. She withers and shrinks. Her teeth fall to the floor like dropped coins and she staggers back, collapsing into the tub.
You hear a knock at the door. You glance out the window to see Megan running down the street. On the step you find the jar and you run back to dump a handful of them into the tub. You know what’s inside each soft little bead. You know what she did to stupid virginal Jessica. But you’ll do anything to save her. She’s your mother, after all.
But there is nothing left to save. The water is deep red and rapidly cooling. You dip your hand in and your wounds are healed. She turns her head to you, tries once more to speak, and then she is gone.
You stash the jar when you call the police. You hide Jessica’s cross under your sweatshirt. You tell them you don’t know what happened, that you found her like this. They drape crime scene tape across the bathroom door, carry your mother out in a white bag, contact your father and ask him to come pick you up.
A social worker watches while you pack a suitcase. You slip the half-emptied jar of bath beads in while her back is turned. Your mother would want you to have them. Your mother would want you to be beautiful.
