Just A Quick Shower

Mary needed silence.

She smelled like curdled breast milk, and her head ached from where the blown-out scrunchie pulled at her dirty, tangled hair.

She’d been solo-parenting her children for a small forever, not able to take a bowel movement without the audience of three little faces, and she needed to be alone for a moment.

Just a quick shower…

Mary had always assumed they’d have two children. The twins had been a shock.

And now she had three under three and a husband who always had a sales conference in Tulsa, St. Louis, or some other sad little city.

Mary led a loud, chaotic, and lonely life.

She kept meaning to make friends, kept meaning to leave the house. When she would muster the courage to go out in public, it usually involved going to a park, where the designer moms shot her nasty looks as she breastfed the nearly two-year-old twins.

Mary wasn’t designer mom material.

Mary sometimes worried she wasn’t any kind of mom material.

Last week, they’d almost attended a mommy and me workout class, but like most of Mary’s good intentions, this, too, fell by the wayside. She’d gotten everyone dressed, but she still couldn’t make it out of the door.

An almost, then a never.

The opportunity gone in a blink, like all the precious moments she was supposed to be cherishing.

The oldest claimed that a bogeyman lived under the bed while the twins played a near-constant game of hide-and-seek. The littles liked to scare the oldest, and then Mary had to listen to everyone collectively lose their shit.

Well, it was her turn now.

Mary had shit to lose.

She just needed a quick shower.

Mary poked her head into her oldest’s room. She had just put together the big kid bed and hoped that her older, quieter child would not end up in her room a dozen times this evening. Right now, the oldest snuggled the petting zoo worth of stuffies on the bed and read a board book.

Relief tingled in Mary’s fingertips. “Hey, mommy’s going to take a quick shower. I’ll be back to check on you in five minutes. Six tops.”

Little brown eyes went wide, and a whisper filled the air, “what about the bogeyman?”

Mary sighed, then asked, “do you want me to check?”

Her oldest nodded.

Mary walked to the double bed and knelt down. The air near the floor felt cold, the kind of cold that could burn. As Mary inhaled, the scent of jasmine and summer rain danced together. She reached for the bed skirt, but something stopped her. A strange feeling that they weren’t alone, like the buzzing of an insect in her mind.

She lifted the bed skirt, relieved to find it empty, save for an army of discarded toys. A single ant crawled across the floor. Mary watched it for a long moment before slowly pressing down her thumb, waiting for the satisfying pop.

“Mommy?”

She shook her head, “All clear.”

Her oldest didn’t seem convinced, but she needed to shower. “I’ll be right back, then I’ll lay with you, okay? Scratch your back.”

The child nodded.

Mary pressed the door closed and stood in front of the twins’ room. The laughter, yelling, and hitting in a constant and unending loop felt like falling into an empty black pit. She held out her hand for the doorknob, but pulled it away when she heard one twin tell the other, I love you.

With a sigh, she decided to leave them be; she needed some time to herself.

Five minutes. Six tops.

Mary locked all the exterior childproof safety locks in the house. All three of them.

There.

The children couldn’t escape.

She could take a quick shower in peace.

Mary selected her least stained pajamas and a pair of fresh cotton underwear from her drawer, then turned the shower on, circling the handle around as far as it would go. She didn’t want a hot shower. She wanted to be boiled.  

Then, a muffled sound of something crashing echoed through the house. Her heart thumped. Sticking her head out of her door, she could hear the twins throwing their new basketball against the wall and screaming.

Always screaming. Sometimes happy, sometimes something else.

Mary should check them, make sure everything was okay. A therapist once told Mary that to stop intrusive thoughts, you’re supposed to imagine the worst thing imaginable to remove power from the thought. Then by not acting, you removed the compulsion.

Mary thought the worst. The absolutely most disgusting thoughts and resisted every urge in her body to check the children.

They were fine. They were fine. They were fine.

The shrieks quieted, and Mary closed the door. She just needed a moment to herself. After stripping out of her dirty clothes, she stepped into the steaming shower. Hot water beat into her skin; she let it assault her. Mary quickly washed and when she was sufficiently sudsed, she rinsed off then sank to the slick tile floor.

From this angle, she could see a trail of mold blooming in the corners of the shower and a wad of long dark hair floating on top of the drain.

She’d get to those the next time she cleaned.

Mary sighed, then closed her eyes.

She would just rest them for two minutes, three tops.

***

Mary woke to the bathroom filled with a thick layer of steam, the water pelting her ran ice cold. She bolted upwards and turned the water off, listening for sounds from the house.

It was silent.

And silence was never good.

Mary ripped the towel from the hook, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the ground as she wrapped it around herself. She flung open the door, and the steam floated out of the room like wispy white ghosts.

She needed to check the children.

A sound like a heavy ball being thrown against a wall echoed in the bathroom. Her head jerked back. She expected the shower head to have fallen off. A mirror or light fixture to be broken.

But everything was as it should be.

Mary placed a hand on her chest, where she could feel her heart thump thump thumping. She knew she should check the children, but the silence called to her. She didn’t want to be needed for just a moment. The children would be fine.

Mary dried herself and pulled on her clean clothes, and was momentarily revived. Despite the door swinging wide open, the steam still hung heavy in the bathroom. She brought her hand to the fogged mirror, prepared to poke and prod her tired skin, but the darkness staring back at her was consuming and seething.

Mary jumped back then around.

Nothing.

Her breath came fast now. She looked into the mirror and saw only her own sad, sallow face. She needed sleep.

Hands still shaking, Mary walked into the dimly lit living room and collapsed onto the couch, where she spent a moment steadying her breath. She hadn’t slept well in three years. Over a thousand nights. And her husband didn’t understand. Why couldn’t she just sleep when they took their naps?

Sometimes, Mary hated him.

Sometimes she wished she could disappear like he did.

Sometimes she wished he would just disappear—forever.

That’s when she saw it.

The back door.

The child lock. Open.

The door lock. Open.

The children were outside.

Mary ran into the backyard calling their names. But stopped herself when she realized she didn’t know this backyard. It looked the same, yet this yard was perfectly manicured, there were no discarded toys or mud smears over the porch, no unsightly play structures or trampolines—only beautifully massive hydrangea bushes and unblemished furniture.

She rubbed her tired eyes. “What the—”

Mary ran back in the house, locking both locks before checking the front door.

These were unlocked, too. She didn’t even check outside, only locked them quickly as her mind slowed and logic tried to worm its way in.

The clock display on the oven blinked a bright red 12:00, again and again.

Mary struggled to remember a time before she left the shower. Struggled to understand the dark, uneasy feeling in her chest.

That sound, like a ball slamming against the wall, echoed from the laundry room.

Mary sprinted there, where the side door banged open and closed.

Mary pulled the door shut. Locking both locks. Resisting the urge to cry out in frustration. To call for help. But Mary never asked for help. Never accepted help.

A whaling cry bellowed deep in the house.

The children. She had forgotten about the children.

Mary ran through the kitchen, grabbing the only knife not in the dishwasher. A cleaver.

She padded down the long hallway to the children’s room.

Mary took a breath and gently pressed on the oldest’s door handle. It creaked open, and she grimaced, not wanting to wake a sleeping child.

But there was no child.

The room was empty and sparkling clean.

Mary should’ve been frightened. But she’d never seen her house this clean. No stuffies, no taped up photographs, no piles of Lego creations. Only a beautifully decorated room, a show home really.

Mary found herself entranced by the order of it all. How often had she longed for the house to be quiet and clean?

But something wasn’t right; it was cold, sterile, and the air smelled like stale jasmine.

Mary looked down at the cleaver clutched tight in her hand and wondered why she’d grabbed it.

She ambled toward the next room, opening the door with eager anticipation.

Two cribs were replaced with two empty bassinets.

All of her fear drained out of her now, replaced with something like excitement. Mary couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the floor here. This room belonged in the pages of a magazine. It didn’t even look like her house, and Mary liked that. The acrid smell of jasmine stung her nostrils, but the scent mellowed as she grew acquainted with it. It was almost pleasant now. It smelled clean.

Mary didn’t want to live in a mess.

She wanted order.

She wanted pristine rooms.

She wanted quiet.

Mary shivered as damp, cold air seeped past the material of her thin pajamas. When she inhaled, the floral scent soured and turned her stomach.

The ball against the wall sounded again.

Mary startled from her haze as the sound clanged again.

And again.

And again.

The children, Mary thought. She had forgotten about the children.

Mary ran toward the banging. The laundry room door.

Unlocked, again.

Banging back and forth.

Her worst fears finally springing to life.

The children had gone out…

Or someone had gone in…

She reached for the door, begging it shut before locking it with a shaking hand.

But the banging continued, this time from the living room. Mary ran there. The doors swung wildly.

Open and closed.

Open and closed.

Mary begged it to stop. As the back door swung open again, she sliced the knife through the air, battling an invisible monster.

A monster that told her she was unworthy, that she was a terrible mother, that she couldn’t handle the pressure of raising her children, that her husband had never liked her in the first place. She screamed and pleaded with the air that suffocated her with its judgment. Mary didn’t notice the cleaver cutting cleanly into her skin, her body so numb she barely felt the sticky, warm blood sliding down her thighs. She yelled and fought all alone, and it wasn’t until she was choking on her own blood that she finally called out for help.

***

Mary screamed and bolted awake. The water from the shower burned her skin.

The children.

She needed to check the children.

Pushing up from the tile, she threw open the bathroom door. She ached to hear the loud chaos of the twins or for the oldest to have crept out asking for water, but the house was still and silent.

And silence was never good.