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“I’m glad you had that at least. Sometimes knowing how much my mother loved me was the only thing that kept me going this past year.”
He returned to her side and handed her the piece of fabric he’d cut.
“Will this work? Or do you want it shorter?”
She held it up and realized it would extend almost to her ankles. But perhaps she could tie it under her arms instead so it would be more like a dress. At least that would give her something to wear while she washed out her tank top.
“No, this is fine. Thank you.”
He nodded, then tentatively sat down next to her, careful to keep a short distance between them.
“The man in the boat - Harold - he was your stepfather?”
“Yes. My mom married him ten years ago, just before I turned eleven. She’d been a widow for a long time and everyone in town thought he was a great catch. He’s very rich. I think he owns half the town.”
The big house and the pretty room - it had seemed like a fairy tale at first. She realized much later that he must have started abusing her mother almost immediately, but her mother hid it so well that it took a long time for her to suspect what was happening. She was still ashamed at how long it had taken her.
She’d never liked him and quickly learned to fear his temper, he’d never touched her. Although she resented the control he exerted over her life, it was easier to busy herself with school and the few friends he allowed her to have. When she finally realized what he was doing to her mother - when he finally stopped trying to hide his cruelty behind a veil of false joviality, she’d begged her mother to leave. But by then Harold had made it almost impossible. He controlled the money, the cars - and most of the town. Her mother had no one - which was probably why Harold had chosen her in the first place.
Rorie had been determined to find a way out, a way for both of them to escape. Harold would never have paid for her to attend college but she’d worked hard enough to earn a scholarship. She’d clung to that hope, but then the summer after her senior year her mother had gotten sick and everything changed. Her mother quickly became too weak to leave and Rorie refused to abandon her. She’d stayed and nursed her until the end.
Marsh’s hand covered hers and she jumped, still lost in her memories.
“But he abused her? And you as well?”
“He didn’t touch me until after she died. But this past year…” She shook her head and stared out at the surrounding darkness as the moon disappearing behind a cloud. “I was working on a way to escape, but this wasn’t it.”
“Why did you run tonight?”
The memory of blood flashed through her mind again, but she couldn’t stand the thought of talking about it. Not yet. Instead she gave him a fake smile.
“It’s a long story. Do you have somewhere I can clean up?”
For a moment she thought he’d insist on an answer but instead he rose and helped her to her feet, making sure she didn’t put any weight on her injured ankle as he led her over to the closed screen to the left of the bed. He pushed it back and lit an oil lamp that revealed a surprisingly well-equipped bathroom. An antique porcelain bowl had been dropped into a slab of polished wood beneath a copper tap. Another copper fixture, a large shower head, was high above a large metal tub, probably a former animal watering trough. In the far corner was an old-fashioned toilet with a wooden seat and a tank on the wall above it.
“You have indoor plumbing?”
“To an extent. I collect rain water. Some of it is warmed in a solar tank for the shower. The rest is used for washing and filling the tank. All of the figures drain to a greywater tank or a composting field. It took me a while to figure everything out but it works pretty smoothly now.”
“You did it all yourself?”
“Mostly. Part of the house was already here - we used to spend a lot of time here before my mother died. When I moved here for good, I started making improvements and expanding little by little.”
“That’s amazing.”
He ducked his head, looking embarrassed.
“You can accomplish a lot with time and patience. The hot water storage is almost full - you should have enough for ten minutes or so if you’d like to take a shower. That is…” He looked down at her ankle. “A bath would be better. You wouldn’t need to stand.”
“That’s fine with me - I just want to get clean. Will it hurt the bandage?”
“No. It will get wet but the heat of the water will only reinforce the healing oil.”
“Then a bath it is.”
He had her sit on closed lid of the toilet while he filled the tub, adding a sprinkle of dried herbs that filled with the room with a pleasant light scent. When he finished he turned to her, then hesitated.
“Your clothing…”
