She turns her back to her door and faces down the hallway.

Ninety-six steps.

She closes her eyes and places one foot in front of the other, counting to that magic number in the dark, stumbling because her daddy’s hands aren’t on her shoulders to guide her.

Ninety-three.

Ninety-four.

Ninety-five.

Ninety-six.

She stops and opens her eyes. She’s at the far end of the hall, right before the stairs. The only door nearby is to her left, hidden from the uniformity. She opens it and instantly recognizes the yellowed tile and white ceramic tub, the dirty grout and smeared mirror. She can see so clearly through the dark, she doesn’t realize the light is off. It’s not until she steps inside and eyes the switch, playing around with it to understand its function, that the sickly hue flashes on. She winces, stunned by how much brighter everything becomes. She adjusts and smiles at the familiarity.

Even with just one person inside, the room feels claustrophobic, like the walls are waiting to close in around her. It must have been hard for her daddy to get her clean in such a confined space. He must have struggled to fit.

She stands in front of the mirror, brushing her fingers through her coagulated pigtails, gripping the dirty strands, twisting them, draping the golden ropes tarnished with distress and trauma over her shoulders. She adjusts the lollipop stem in her mouth.

“Look how beautiful you are, Vanilla.”

His hands weaving through her roots, fingering the small of her back.

“You are the most beautiful girl to ever exist, my sweet.”

His nails brushing against her cheek. Watching his fingers in the mirror waterfall down her face. Her eyebrows knitting together, innocent curiosity reflecting through grime.

“Are there others to have existed, Daddy?”

His knuckles clenching against the back of her neck.

“No.”

A white towel hangs from a rail above the bath. She pulls it down and clutches it in her hands, the fibers rough and scratchy. The kind of scratchy that pleasantly satisfies an itch. She brings the towel to her nose and inhales. The smell is fresh; the faint, icy scent of her daddy lingers.

She lays the towel down on the sink and turns to the bath. From the porcelain sprout two knobs indented with ridges and a faucet like the sink. She realizes that she’s never seen her daddy fill the bath—he’s always had the water ready for her before the blindfold was removed.

She steps into the tub and crouches in front of the controls. There are two—one red, the other blue. Looking at the blue one makes her think of the cold. Of the frosty bathwater that always chilled her spine. That she put up with to be able to look into her daddy’s blue eyes without interruption. That she put up with so he wouldn’t leave.

She grabs the red knob and twists. A stream of water pours out from the faucet and drowns her toes. Ribbons of mist rise from the centimeter-deep surface. She tries to sense a temperature like her daddy would ask her to do, but she can’t gauge it. It simply feels wet.