XXIX.
I opened my eyes and saw Cait's face above me. She was holding the back of my head over a faucet and pouring warm water on my forehead. She was wearing a clean white t-shirt and her uncombed dull brown hair fell in pieces onto my face. She had that same tricky grin on her face that she did in the picture of her as a young girl.
"Hey," I said.
"Shhhhh," she answered. "Just keep your head back." She smiled calmly.
"Okay," I said.
"Tell me about your favorite colors." She pet my hair and I cooed back like a baby.
"Blue..."
"And?"
"Green..."
"Yes?"
"Purple.."
"Okay?"
"Pink.."
"Like a sunset?"
"Yes."
"And?" She tilt my head back further and water splashed into my eyes. Her voice was cool and pacifying, in a way I'd never heard her speak.
"Black." I closed my eyes tightly as the water became hotter and the pressure increased. I tried to move my head up from her hand but couldn't. She was pulling my hair back down into the tub. I opened my eyes and saw her bright smile and faded eyes watching me struggle from her grasp. I pulled up my head again against her resistance.
"Shhhh," she said again.
Now she moved my head directly under the faucet. The water crashed into my eyes and nose and mouth. I spit it out in struggled breaths. I dug my nails into her warm arms and peddled my head left and right, attempting to escape the water.
"Shhhh," I heard her say again. "Think about the colors," she said. "Blue...and green..and purple...and pink.." She pulled my hair down further into the tub.
Suddenly she let go of my hair, letting my head drop to the bottom of the tub. She pushed my legs in after me and I dropped in like a dummy. The water pressure lightened and I heard the distinct sound of creaking and diminishing footsteps. I felt the steps with an intensity as they faded away, like each foot on the ground was lodged directly onto my spine.
I opened my eyes and there was Tuan sitting on the edge of the tub, with a detachable shower head in one hand and a beer can in the other. He took a long drink from the can and kept the shower head steady in my direction. He glanced at me with a look of happy inertia. It was clear from a certain weirdness and wisdom and ease in his eyes that anything odd we'd experience tonight would be merely average in the great scope of his life.
"Cait," I said.
"Hey!" He said brightly.
Wheeler walked in looking high and holding a large blanket.
"We did it," he said. "We found it."
"Where is she?" I asked.
"Who knows," said Wheeler. "Not here."
"I saw her," I said.
"Me too. That was definitely her in the picture. You hit your head hard there in the kitchen. You woke up the dogs, man!"
"She was here," I argued.
"Hacket hasn't seen her in 5 years, yo. And since you passed out things have been gettin' a little weird here. The old man's back in bed but we need to go. She's not here and he doesn't want anything to do with it."
Tuan turned off the faucet and finished his beer.
The two insisted on carrying me out of the Hacket house wrapped inside the blanket like an adult baby. I felt too dizzy to disagree, and we piled into Tuan's car once more, rounded the bend passed Cait's family home, and headed back into the city.
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