Ablution

Because one must be naked to get clean, my dad shrugs out of his pajama shirt, steps from his boxers and into the tub as I brace him, whose long illness has made him shed modesty too. Seated on the plastic bench, he holds the soap like a caught fish in his lap, waiting for me to test the water’s heat on my wrist before turning the nozzle toward his pale skin. He leans over to be doused, then hands me the soap so I might scrub his shoulders and neck, suds sluicing from spine to buttock cleft. Like a child he wants a washcloth to cover his eyes while I lather a palmful of pearlescent shampoo into his craniotomy-scarred scalp and then rinse clear whatever soft hair is left. Our voices echo in the spray and steam of this room where once, long ago, he knelt at the tub’s edge to pour cups of bathwater over my head. He reminds me to wash behind his ears, and when he judges himself to be clean, I turn off the tap. He grips the safety bar, steadies himself, and stands. Turning to me, his body is dripping and frail and pink. And although I am nearly forty, he has this one last thing to teach me. I hold open the towel to receive him.