She Takes Her Bath At Night

She Takes Her Bath At Night

I am 6 and my mother is taking her nightly bath. She always uses Dove soap on her skin. She emerges from the tub warm and radiant, and she smells beautiful. She turns to me and says “and now it’s your turn!” I am bubbling with excitement. It is my favourite thing in the world to get into mom’s bath water when she is done.

She lets me bring in empty shampoo and perfume bottles, which I fill and empty with the milky bath water. I do this endlessly and never tire of it. Sometimes I pretend that I am dying of a mysterious, romantic illness and the only cure is to pour the warm water over my head.

My mother is downstairs getting desert ready for me. She shouts up the stairs “Do you want Neapolitan ice cream? It’s a mix of chocolate, strawberry and vanilla!” Not fully understanding her question, I shout that I want chocolate and go back to the very serious business of washing my Barbie. Barbie needs to have her hair washed, just like me. This gives me comfort.

Now I am 8, and the soap is all different now. Someone has put Irish Spring in the bathtub. My mother no longer takes her baths in the big bathroom anymore. She goes in her own bathroom, which is in her bedroom. I’m not allowed in there unless I ask because that’s where she hides Christmas presents and junk food and nasty things that she confiscates from my brothers’ rooms. My brothers and I have a bathroom to ourselves, and it is overrun with teenage boy stuff. There is shaving cream, razors, deodorant, and all of it smelly. I am growing up to be a big girl now and I mustn’t have baths in my mother’s leftover bathwater.

I take a solitary bath in my own bathwater, and I am beginning to like this. I am completely fascinated with a crystal bottle which I found in the pantry. I fill it up with water and pretend that it’s full of perfume. I dab this behind my ears and on my wrists, where my nana tells me a lady is to place her scent. I imagine that I am a princess like She-Ra and that my magical perfume will bring me a handsome prince.

I don’t mind that my bath is taken with Irish Springs, because we have to use what we have and we can’t be wasteful, and the Dove soap stays in mom’s bathroom. I miss the soap but it doesn’t ever occur to me to ask for some of my own.

Sometimes, when mom and dad go out for a fancy dinner and mom puts on her makeup and perfume and high heels, I am allowed to go into her bathwater. I love this because it makes me feel like a baby again, which is nice because when you are 8 no one thinks you are cute anymore.

Now I am 12 and I have become obsessed with bath beads from the Body Shop. I take these into the tub with me at night, and instead of putting them in the water I use a syringe and draw out the scent oil and inject it into a little glass vial. When I get out of the tub, I dab the oil behind my ears like a true lady. Then I take the rest of it, rub it in my palms, and smooth it over my hair, which has become my enemy. I have a horrible mop of horse hair which is neither curly nor straight and it’s the bane of my existence. I want to cut it into a bob but mom says she will never let me cut my hair off.

Every night I smooth the oil over my hair, hoping it will smooth it out and make it dead straight like the Asian girls on tv. I must be the only Korean girl in the world who doesn’t have bone straight, limp, asian hair. I hate my looks and I hate my hair and every night I get into the tub hoping that tonight’s bathbead will make a difference. White Musk? Failed. Satsuma? Failed. Green apple? Stawberry? Dewberry? Failed! Failed! Failed!

My brother finds my syringe and needle kit in my drawer, along with the vials of oil and some empty analgesic packages that were in the bag with it when I got it from my friend Trisha’s house. Her dad was in the business of selling pharmaceuticals and had tons of clean hypodermic needles in his sample kit. My brother told my mother and I got a lecture from them both as they were convinced I was injecting myself in the leg with painkillers every night in the bath to deal with my injuries from dance. I felt so silly telling them the truth. I think my mom understood because that year she let me cut my hair short for the first time in my life.

Now I am 15 and I’m watching my mother wash her hair in the sink before she heads to work in the morning. I wonder why she just doesn’t just shower in the morning like everyone else. She says she needs to have her bath at night, and she doesn’t like to shower in the morning. She just needs to wash her hair so it’s easy to style for the day. I am 15 and incredulous and full of attitude, and I just don’t get it.

Now I am 21 and home from college, staying with my parents for the summer. It’s evening and my mother is running the tub. I ask her “Why do you always have a tub at night mom?” and she says “I just always have. I like my tub at night, it helps me relax.” Then my father comes into the bathroom and playfully pulls her to him and says in a gruff voice “I like my women clean! Who wants to go to sleep next to a dirty woman?” My mom pushes him away, smiling and looking at him like he’s just done a cheeky stunt that she disapproves of, but secretly thinks is funny. That moment is a microcosm of my parents marriage, and I suddenly feel like I’m in the middle of an inside joke between the two of them. I slip out the bathroom door, smiling.

Now I am 28 and I have my own family. I am running the tub for my 7 year old stepson. He is bringing all his Hot Wheels into the tub with him. He pretends they are driving around the edge of the tub and doing extreme jumps into the water. He insists on wearing his swimming goggles and runs the water til he can completely submerge himself and try to see underwater like a suburban Jacque Cousteau. I wash his hair and use an giant cup from Stardust Casino in Las Vegas to rinse the soap out of his eyes. He stands up to get out of the tub and I wrap him in a big fluffy towel.

He asks what’s for desert and my fiancé lists off a number of junk food options, which I disapprove of but don’t object to. We put him to bed, and he drifts off on the afterglow of a perfect bubble bath.

Later, when the house is dark and my fiancé is in bed reading a book, I go into the bathroom, light a few candles, and I run my tub. I slip beneath the bubbles and completely submerge myself. I am weightless, unburdened, and free. When I’m done I wrap myself in a big fluffy towel, tiptoe into the bedroom, and slide into bed. I am warm, I am beautiful. I am a clean woman. My eyes close and feel myself sink into a perfect sleep.