Two-and-a-Half Baths

This morning, we took our first bath together.

As Mackenzie rested in the cradle formed from my knees to waist by my angled legs, I imagined some poor bastard stuck in traffic, late for work and another day's ego struggle with an ineffectual boss, dreading already the evening's trip home to the old ball-and-chain, the chaotic household, the unpayable bills. I thought of a wonderful person, afflicted with terminal cancer aching for health, alone in her room. I thought of a seemingly successful person, with a heated three-car garage stocked with worthy vehicles, closets full of lovely clothes, membership on important boards and in exclusive clubs, with an orthodontically-perfected smile, pausing in the front yard as she leans to pick up the newspaper on a clear fall day, and feels the recurrent stab of something missing.

It is a pity that those tormented folks could not be taking a bath with an infant. Fifteen minutes of cleansing warm stillness can convey to a spirit all and everything that heals what ails.

Mackenzie arched her back and flailed her arms and legs. She looked around the room for several minutes before settling on my face. I held her in one hand, at her neck only, and eased her into the water. She bobbed gracefully between my legs. When I shampooed her head, she arched back, as if to help me with the rinse. I was thinking that if adults could get over the nudity issue, this would be a wonderful way to have one's hair wetted at the salon.

"Nude Haircuts. Walk-ins Welcome."

A smile came; my eyes closed . . .

I gave an adult friend of mine a bath a couple of years ago. She was able to bathe herself, but she was in considerable distress, and we are close enough that her modesty was not assaulted by my seeing and touching her in "the altogether".

The tub in which she sat was elevated a couple of feet above the floor. There was a step, where I knelt as I soaped the washcloth. I looked into her intelligent lovely eyes, found the extent of trust that she could muster, and spoke with my soft smile that she was safe with me.

Her cheekbones are high, crisp, and clear. I traced them with my index finger through the cloth. Her jawline has caused through the years otherwise reasonable men to threaten one another over who would get the next place in the line to possibly ask her to have dinner. I let it cut between my middle and ring fingers, then smeared her perfect chin with my fingertips.

Each portion of her graceful shapely smooth container I washed with the same care. She rested her head at the neck upon the tub's edge, and accepted my worship as would any perfect high altar.

When I washed her hair, she moved toward the tub's center, flexing her knees, so that I could guide her head down for the rinse. I scratched thoroughly her scalp. Sinatra was "The Voice"; she is "The Neck". I vigorously rubbed its back, and heard a contented moan as she let her head flop backwards.

She gave me her hand, and stood in the tub. I led her down the step to the bathroom's floor. She reminded me of Audrey Hepburn. As I took up a deeply-napped towel, I wanted to put elbow-length gloves on her willowy arms and nurturing hands.

After wrapping her at the waist with one towel, and draping a second over shoulders, I dried her from her feet up. I patted her face gingerly, then placed my lips on hers. We stayed there for ten seconds. As I stepped away, her eyes said some of her doubt had been left in the bath.

She put on a terrycloth robe, and sat in a chair. I combed, then brushed, her hair for fifteen minutes - not to tidy her appearance, but to massage her scalp.

I brought her juice and coffee. She drank and returned to her altar-ed state as I rubbed lotion into her feet and tender calves. When the lotion was absorbed from and by my hands, I rose, and went to the kitchen to make her a sandwich.

Opening my eyes, seeing precious Mackenzie before me, I felt an asthmatic tightness. My poor fragile friend, who I bathed as if she were an infant, is doubtless stuck in traffic somewhere, headed home to a conflict, suffering illness, or standing in her perfect front yard with a twisted expression that no neighbor will notice.