The lady sometimes hummed a quiet tune when she washed Christy. Sometimes she would chatter endlessly, a sound more annoying than painful. Today, however, she went about the business of getting Christy clean and changed in silence. Christy liked that, because, except when she ran the water, which shot through him, making him wince and tear up, he could still hear the birds singing from the box by his bed. He wanted the bath over, over so fast. When the lady took out the towel, Christy reached for it. He wanted to get dressed fast. He wanted to go outside right now, naked and damp.
The fear that had been a tiny thing when the lady had come in and said “bath” had grown inside him. He wanted to hear the birds. It wouldn’t happen, though, if the lady went at her usual pace. He reached for the towel, and he was enraged when she pulled it out of his reach. She smiled at him, and whispered, “Christy! You can finish drying once I’ve got the worst of the water off you.”
Christy heard more quiet footfalls from his bedroom, and knew the man had come in. He had liked the man at first. Once, the man had yelled. Now, Christy feared him more. It was like inside the nice man who would clean him and change him and push his chair through the house in the dark was this other person, a creature, a monster who yelled, some thing that didn’t care how much Christy hurt, how much the sticks went in through his ears. Sometimes, Christy thought the man knew he knew about that monster inside. Other times he couldn’t tell. Christy was glad the lady was here, because being around the man was easier when she was there.
“We almost ready?” He hadn’t whispered, and Christy winced.
“Thomas! How many times have I told you? We have to whisper around this young man! Goodness, it’s like you don’t care!” The woman had whispered, but even Christy, who didn’t know most of the sounds, knew she had yelled at the man in a way that hurt him just like the way the man yelled hurt him.
“Sorry,” the man muttered.
“Almost done. Just gotta put those new pajamas on him. Could you get the Depends from the box?” Christy let this pass over him because he could hear the bird song from the box even over them talking and the fear, chased away by the sticks from the man’s voice, had come back. Fear he would miss them, the birds would all be gone, and all he would hear would be sounds that would push their sticks in to his head, making him scream, making him cry. He put up with the drying and dressing because he knew if he tried to grab something, the lady would pull it away like the towel, and then the fear would change to panic. He had to get outside. He just had to.
Five minutes later, the man was pushing his chair down the hall to the front door. The rooms were all dark, the ticking of the large clock pounding in his head, and he tried hard not to cry when the pain shot down from his ears and spread through his belly, where the fear was. The lady opened the door and they were outside, and the man was backing the chair down the ramp but that didn’t matter, because once the door was open, the sound of the birds washed over Christy. He started to cry, but it wasn’t the kind of crying because the sound hurt so much. It was a crying he didn’t understand.
He was happy.
Around him, the whippoorwills sang their dirge in the drawing down dark.