He’d try to get her out to go places with him, but she hardly ever would. She’d say she didn’t look right, or her hair wasn’t ready, or she hadn’t had a bath. He was sometimes only asking for her to go buy groceries with him. They couldn’t go dancing because she was semicrippled, from a car accident a long time ago. It wasn’t that she couldn’t actually walk. She actually could. She just preferred not to. Tiny had to help her bathe. He would roll her in her wheelchair with her thin legs crossed under a robe and lovingly draw a tub of warm water, testing it frequently with his hand, talking softly to her, making sure the water wasn’t too cold or too hot, and then together they would work her out of her robe and he would help her pull her arms out of the entrapments of the sleeves until she sat naked and pale and defenseless and semicrippled and slightly drunk in the chair, and he would slide his hands under her legs, feeling the movement of her loose skin under the slack muscles of her thighs, and lift her, gently, careful not to bump her, and pick her up, stand balanced with the precious weight of her in his arms, his hands cradling the soft, withered flesh of her back and legs, and lower her, gradually, slowly and carefully, almost herniating himself sometimes, into the warm water, and bring her an ashtray and replenish her drink, and he would sit there and bathe her back, her little sad and drooping breasts, and she would talk about David Letterman and what he’d said, and he would rinse her back slowly, lovingly, and try to fix her eyes with his eyes, and she would prattle on, the water cooling, her toes red and distorted and pruney.

It seemed to go on forever sometimes, the two of them sitting in the bathroom, because she could lean forward and turn on the faucet with her toes and let more hot water in, and Tiny would keep replenishing her drink, because it was a prelude to love. Once the bath was done and she was done and she said that she was ready, he would let the water out and dry her partially where she sat in the tub, because he didn’t want to pick her up while she was wet and risk dropping her, and she would lift her legs and let him dry her under each one, and he would carefully run the towel under and over everything involved, so that she would be dry, and safe to hold, and he would, once he was sure of this, bend once again and put his hands under her legs and behind her back and lift her up, and reposition her in the wheelchair, toss her little robe over her, and wheel her back to the bedroom.