Regina locked the bathroom door. She hung her bathrobe up and pushed the potty from the middle of the floor with the side of her foot. It hadn’t been used the previous night, a sign the Little Madam, as she called her daughter, was getting the idea of not waking Mammy at night.
She stepped into the shower and allowed the warming water to run over her head. The shiver helped her revive after the nights of interrupted sleep. As the water hit the temperature between warm and hot she shuddered more violently. She wanted to check the door was locked but calmed the rising panic by repeating aloud that she had locked it, that it was alright.
Once the hot water ran down her back she began to relax again. It was ridiculous that after all these years she was still ruled by a single unfortunate incident. An accident even.
As she soaped and scrubbed she willed herself to think it through. She had been fifteen years old, not quite fully tall but well developed in every other way. Initially pleased at her male school friend’s attentions, by fifteen she was weary of them and repulsed them with angry feminist tirades. They weren’t alone in receiving the sharp end of her tongue; she berated her mother for not working outside the home, for being under her father’s thumb. Her mother would sigh, look sad and tell her she would understand in time.
In the mornings, she liked to rise earliest and take her time in the shower. She would stand under the running water allowing her thoughts to flow. One such day she stood covered in suds when the bathroom door opened. Peering through the frosted glass of the shower cubicle she thought she recognized her father’s figure. Frozen she watched the ghostly shape close and lock the door.
Defenseless she waited. What could she do? Her bathrobe was too far away, she would expose herself completely to him. She could shout, tell him to leave but with the sound of the shower, he might not hear.
Her father walked to the toilet, raised the seat and began to pee. He seemed oblivious as he farted repeatedly. It was too late to shout, in listening to his toilet Regina had entered a zone of intimacy she couldn’t break free from. She let the water run scalding across her shoulders as he washed his hands. He left the bathroom without a glance to the shower cubicle.
She’d waited for an age before she moved. Wrapping her towel tightly around her she waited again before leaving the bathroom. Her father had openly wondered why she avoided him, but decided teenage girls were a mystery he couldn’t solve. Even when she was alone in the house, she locked the door.
Now there was a frantic hammering at the door. Regina rinsed herself, refusing to be rushed. The hammering continued and now she heard Jim calling her name. Reluctantly she turned off the water, stepped out, wrapped herself in the robe and unlocked the door.
Jim was on his knees awkwardly hugging the crying Little Madam. He held her away from him avoiding her soaked pyjama bottoms, hugging her neck alone.
He looked accusingly at Regina, “The least you could have done was left the door unlocked. We’ve been knocking for ten minutes and she couldn’t hold it any longer.”
