The water was tepid at best. First he fished out the cigarette butt. Bowled water in his palms, doused his hair and mopped it back into a single black swoop. Reminded him of their first night in this home, a pair of sort-of adults playing house, exchanging affectionate slurs, oblivious to the world beyond their bedroom. He said hey, look to remind her, too, but the gaze he got in turn was blank. Too far gone for nostalgia. It was fine, though, because when he wedged himself behind her in the tub, her back against his belly was slick and pulsing, which, blended with reminiscing and exhaustion, began coaxing him to sleep like some gooey lullaby. He closed his eyes.

She told him to touch her, wash her, then passed back a loofah. So tired, he grazed the loofah over the parts of her most easily accessible, the zones that didn’t require stretching or repositioning himself. He let the back of his head rest against the wall’s linoleum paneling, and he still remembers his thoughts wading away, coming to terms with the fact that he wouldn’t be entirely opposed to drowning in there, dying just like this. She shifted herself upward and reached between his thighs. Tried gripping him, but all she got was a fleshy dumpling. He didn’t bother apologizing because he was drifting off, fading away, and so couldn’t even say what a shame it was that his bent knees, bracketing Michelle but poking out of the bathwater, were so, so cold.

“Why won’t you fuck me?”

He jolted awake with a splash, surprised to find himself in a tub.

She repeated the question, just as vicious but twice as loud. She twisted between his knees, all her stoned lobes filed back to her daytime blades. Her voice rose as she asked what in the actual fuck was wrong with him? Huh? What kind of a man, after five years in a cell, came home to the woman who’d waited for him, like, stayed faithful to him, slaved away and raised his son all on her own, but he wouldn’t even—no, couldn’t even—

“Please,” he said. “Junior’s sleeping.”

At that, she’d shot out of the tub and marched from the bathroom nude and dripping, leaving her angry wake to lap over him stroke after stroke, and now the memory washes away any allure a bath in this motel tub might have held. He ties a towel around his waist. When he opens the door, steam escapes then dissipates in the motel room. He tells Junior it’s bath time.

The boy has curled himself back into a ball, now lying on his other side to better view the TV. “Can’t I finish this movie first?”

Henry’s patience is threadbare. He smears his face with both hands, kneading resolve into his forehead. “Junior.”