Frost

Figuring she had forgotten something—she had a hard time getting out of the tub, and was always needing me to bring her a razor or towel or something else—I tossed her laundry bag in our room and went in. She was sitting in the bath, a thin layer of bubbles covering the surface of the water. Her cast was propped up on her special bath stool, in its plastic bag. Her other leg was bent, her arms wrapped around it. There was something not quite right about her face. Her jaw muscles were tense, her skin paler than usual. She looked like she might be trembling.

“Are you okay?” I said.

She shifted positions slightly to show me: a bright red mark seared the back of her left upper arm. I knelt quickly by the tub. It was a burn. The size of a baby’s fist. Not blistered, but still obviously painful.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I . . . I was sitting here while the water was running,” she said. “And I guess . . . I guess I bumped against the faucet. I don’t remember. It happened so quickly, and then it hurt so much.”

“That’s from the faucet?” I said. “The water must have been so hot.”

She shook her head. “I was trying to cool the bath down. Only the cold water was turned on.”

“You must have turned the wrong handle.”

“I didn’t.” Then she said it again, louder. “I didn’t. I know which handle I turned. This wasn’t my fault.”

The faucet couldn’t have burned her if it was running cold water, obviously, but there was no point in me fighting with her. What mattered was her burn.

“Let’s drain the bath,” I said. “And then you need to hold your arm under a stream of cool water. I’ll cover the faucet with a facecloth.” As I did, I found that the metal wasn’t hot at all. The bathwater wasn’t especially hot either. How long had she been sitting here? I didn’t ask, just handed her towels to wrap over her legs and her shoulders, so she’d warm up. Her whole body was shaking. “You should take Tylenol for the pain,” I said. For once, she didn’t say no to my suggestion of medication. I left her for a moment and went back into the bedroom.

After getting a couple of pills from my stash, I happened to notice that Celeste’s beetle photo wasn’t hanging in its usual spot. This wasn’t so strange; for some reason, ever since that first day, the frame had been prone to falling off the nail. But this time, I didn’t see it on the bed where it usually landed either.

I wasn’t sure why this made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, but it did.

“Leena?” Celeste called.

“One second,” I called back. “Just finding the Tylenol.”

I quickly scanned the room and spotted the photo lying awkwardly on the floor across from Celeste’s bed. With growing apprehension, I walked over and picked it up. The photo itself was fine. But one corner of the black frame had chipped badly, revealing the lighter wood underneath the paint. Following an instinct, I checked the wall. About two feet up from where the photo had been lying, there was a black mark on the white surface, where the corner must have hit.

The frame hadn’t been placed on the floor.

It had been thrown.

My body stiffened. What had gone on here while I was with David?

“Leena?” Celeste called again.

I set the frame on her bed, then returned to the bathroom and handed Celeste the Tylenol and a glass of water from the sink, an anxious thumping in my chest. “What happened to your photo?” I asked carefully.

“Huh?” She took the pills and handed me back the glass.

“The beetle photo.”

“Did it fall again?” she said. “Can you grab my robe?”

“You weren’t in there when it . . . fell?” I said, letting her use my arm for stability as she climbed out of the tub.

“No.” She slipped her right arm into her silk robe and held the fabric closed in front, then twisted to look at her burn. “Do I need to bandage this or something?”

“I’ll do it.”

I got supplies from my first-aid kit in the medicine cabinet, my thoughts spinning. If Celeste really didn’t know what I was talking about, did that mean someone had snuck in our bedroom and thrown her photo while she was in the bath, or with Whip, and she just hadn’t found it yet?

After applying antibiotic ointment to her burn, I tore off a piece of tape and affixed gauze across it. She’d seemed so vulnerable: sitting in the tub, all skinny and trembling. How would she react if she knew that while she’d been in there, someone had done that to her artwork? Would she accuse Abby because of the way they’d been sniping at dinner? I bit my cheeks and wondered if maybe . . . maybe it would be better if I didn’t tell her at all. At least, not now, while she was already shaky.

“There,” I said, smoothing down the final piece of tape. “It’s not actually that bad, I don’t think. Just hurts.”

“Thanks,” she said.

I was on my way out when she added, “Leena? Don’t tell David about this.”

For a minute I thought she meant about the photo. But, no. Her burn. “Okay,” I said, not seeing any reason he needed to know.