Every Parent Needs a Tub of Their Own
Cabin for Four in High Sierra
One winter, the Friday before a big storm, Mom brought home a clawfoot tub in the back of the pickup. She filled the tub with all the bags of groceries, just to make us laugh when we came out to help unload. Mom was always bringing stuff home—usually scuffed up furniture and books and toys and knickknacks she found for free by the side of the road—but a cast-iron bathtub was a first.
“What on earth are you gonna do with that?” Debbie asked.
“I’m gonna take a bath,” Mom said.
Debbie came out to visit on the weekends sometimes. Mom would chop wood and Debbie would stack it, and they would smoke out by the wood pile behind the garage until the sun set, and once I looked out the kitchen window and saw Mom crying, burying her scrunched-up face in Debbie’s WESTERN STATES 100 MILER T-shirt. As far as we knew, Debbie only had three shirts. She had one that was blue with the words “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” and she had one with hand-embroidered kit-kit-dizze blossoms along the hem. And she had one big jacket. She said she washed the T-shirts every week, but she never washed the jacket. She always smelled like cloves and onions, but she never smelled bad.
Debbie helped Mom unload the tub from the truck—they almost dropped it—and then she helped Mom strap the tub to the wheelbarrow, which they had decided was the best of all their bad ideas in the how-to-move-this-monster department, and together they got the tub established on the terrace with only a few new chips in the enamel. They put the tub right in front of the outdoor fireplace, which we never used. There was something wrong with the flue on that side.
I looked at the tub. I could almost hear what Dad would have said—the same thing he said about the deck chairs and the loveseat and the little trampoline and the croquet set and the ice cream maker and even the hand-me-down clothes and the roller skates—and I waited for it, but Mom and Debbie just started talking about how much propane was in the tank.
It snowed all night, and all day Saturday, and all through Saturday night. We asked if there would be school on Monday, and Debbie laughed and said, “Not for you.” Debbie made us a big pot of three bean chili while we played cards. Mom tried to teach us how to play progressive rummy, but we weren’t getting it, so we had to switch to crazy eights.
The snow finally stopped, and the sun came out. I had to wear sunglasses when we went to get firewood. Kindling and pine (and pine cones) were for getting the fire started, and oak was for keeping the fire going. The little stash of manzanita was only for emergencies. Even though the sun was shining, the air was so cold that we could feel every inch of our lungs. The ponderosas were vast pillars of white. Their trunks had wind-blown snow all up one side. I spat on the porch railing and touched the wet spot. My finger stuck immediately, which meant it was as cold outside as the coldest storms of last winter, and it was only November.
“Do you think this is gonna be a bad winter?” I asked Debbie.
“Depends on what you like,” Debbie said.
Mom declared that it was time to take a dip. First, she attached a hose to the tap of the kitchen sink and filled the bathtub halfway, to warm the metal. She drained the water right onto the terrace and filled the tub halfway again. Then she covered the tub with a tarp and moved to phase two. She boiled a kettleful of water, took it outside, poured it in, fixed the tarp, and boiled another kettleful, over and over again until the tub was full. We were all in the kitchen by then. Mom turned off the burner. She took off her earrings. Debbie was laughing. Mom took off her sweater. She took off her shoes and socks. She took off her jeans. She took off her long johns. Debbie stopped laughing. Mom took off her panties. Her pubic hair was dark and curly. She picked up the kettle, one last time.
“Anyone feeling brave?” Mom asked.
“No!” we yelled.
Debbie put a hand on each of our shoulders.
We crowded around and watched through the window in the door as Mom removed the tarp from the tub with a flourish and poured the last of the hot water in. A cloud of steam rose from the water. Mom lifted up one foot—I could only see it for a moment, but snow was sticking to her sole—and then she plunged it into the tub. Then she hopped in with her whole body, and the tub was so full that water splashed out onto the flagstones, and everything shimmered.
“I hope she doesn’t get her hair wet,” I said.
But as we watched, Mom took a big breath and dunked herself.
When she came back inside five minutes later, there was ice on her eyelashes. Her hair crackled. She got dressed in the kitchen. She was laughing as she rubbed herself down with a towel. We rubbed her hands with our hands. Her feet were bright red, and Debbie massaged them with a warm washcloth.
“Are you okay?” we asked her. “Weren’t you so cold?”
“It was glorious,” Mom said. “Once in a lifetime.”
Debbie stood to kiss Mom’s neck. “The tub’s not going anywhere.”
