When the Days Grow Short

Chapter 4
Prepared for Anything

Chapter Description: At Honeycrisp Hollow, it pays to prepare for anything. Dan only wishes he knew what, exactly, has been prepared for him.

The door swung inward on a wall of heat and noise.

Women stood before a long mirror washing their hands and repairing windblown hair. A hand dryer roared beside the entrance. Two little girls waited outside separate stalls, swinging their clasped hands between them.

Conversation did not stop when Hannah led Dan inside.

It only thinned.

Dan stood half concealed behind her, gripping the sleeves of her coat where they were knotted around his waist. The sharp scent from his cooling clothes seemed impossibly strong in the heated room.

A woman at the nearest sink looked at him in the mirror.

Hannah offered her an apologetic smile.

“Sorry. Bit of an emergency.”

The woman nodded with immediate sympathy and moved aside.

Dan wanted to explain that he was only there because his clothes had somehow become wet, because he needed somewhere private to clean up, because this would take one minute and then they would leave.

None of those explanations reached his mouth.

A stall opened.

Hannah led him into it.

It was an ordinary stall, scarcely wide enough for the two of them. The toilet stood behind Dan’s knees. His shoulder brushed the metal partition. When Hannah closed the door, the rest of the room remained visible through the narrow gaps around it: pieces of coats, moving shadows, shoes passing beneath.

She locked the door.

Dan faced her, suddenly unable to remember what he was meant to do next.

“Can we call Nate?”

“For what?”

“To leave.”

“We’ll go back to them when you’re ready.”

“I am ready.”

Hannah’s eyes dropped toward his legs.

Dan felt the wet cotton adhering to him. He smelled its cooling sourness.

His face burned.

“I mean after I clean up.”

“Okay.”

She untied her coat from around his waist and hung it from the hook. Without it, the darkened overalls were fully exposed again.

Then she slipped the handbag from her shoulder and placed it on the toilet lid.

It was not a large bag. Dan had seen inside it earlier when she searched for her phone: purse, keys, tissues, lipstick, a charger tangled around itself.

Hannah opened it now and drew out a packet of wipes.

The packet was nearly the length of her forearm.

Dan watched without understanding.

She placed it on the toilet lid. Her hand entered the bag again and emerged with a clear disposal sack, then a small bottle of powder, then a neatly rolled pair of thick wool socks.

The bag did not change shape.

Hannah reached inside once more and withdrew a folded bundle of dark green cotton.

Dan recognized the smiling apple before she shook the garment open.

He looked at the bag. Then at the overalls.

The folded legs alone were longer than the handbag was deep.

“Where did those come from?”

Hannah glanced at them.

“The shop.”

“You bought two?”

“Of course.”

The answer reached him with the false familiarity of something he had forgotten. He tried to picture her carrying two pairs to the register. He remembered the muddy paper bag. The socks. The attendant removing a tag.

Perhaps there had been another pair folded beneath the first.

Hannah hung the clean overalls from the coat hook and crouched before him.

“Lift your foot.”

Dan looked down at her.

“What?”

“Your shoe.”

She tapped his right ankle.

Dan raised his foot. Hannah caught it and pulled the shoe free. The wet sock beneath had gone grey at the heel.

He placed his hand against the partition.

The other shoe followed.

Hannah peeled the socks from his feet one at a time. Cold air touched the damp spaces between his toes. She dropped the socks into the clear bag, then folded several paper towels and pressed them into the insides of his shoes. They darkened immediately.

Her movements were unhurried and unsurprised.

Dan watched the crown of her head.

He should have stopped her. The thought existed somewhere in him, distant and formal. But his balance was poor, and the stall was cramped, and Hannah seemed to understand the order in which everything needed to happen.

He did not.

She stood and released the clasps at his shoulders.

The bib fell away from his chest.

“Arms up.”

Dan raised them.

Hannah pulled his sweater free of the damp waistband and rolled it high enough to keep it dry. Then she pushed the overalls down from his hips.

Cold air entered around him.

Dan flinched.

The soaked cotton resisted, sticking to his legs. Hannah worked it downward in small, efficient pulls while he held the partition and stepped when she told him.

One foot.

Then the other.

The overalls collapsed wetly onto the tiled floor.

Dan stood in his damp underwear and sweater. Hannah lifted the ruined garment by its straps and fed it into the disposal bag. The heavy cotton struck the bottom with a moist slap.

The room beyond the stall felt terribly close. A tap ran. Someone laughed near the mirror. Shoes entered the stall beside them, and a latch clicked into place.

Dan folded his arms over himself.

“I don’t know what happened.”

Hannah removed a wipe from the packet.

“You got frightened.”

“I wasn’t frightened.”

She did not argue.

The wipe unfolded between her hands.

Dan looked at it, then at her.

“I can do it.”

Hannah placed it in his hand.

He remained still.

The sequence of the task would not assemble itself. His clothes were wet. He needed to remove them. Except most of them were already in the bag. The dampness against his skin felt detached from whatever had caused it.

The acrid smell remained.

His embarrassment sharpened until it was almost nausea.

Hannah took the wipe back.

“Hold your sweater.”

Dan gathered the hem in both fists.

She cleaned his lower legs first. The wipe was cold. He flinched each time it crossed skin that had been held against wet fabric. She folded it inward, used the clean side over his ankles and dropped it into the open sack.

Another wipe followed.

Then another.

He became aware of each one landing on top of the soaked clothes at his feet.

Hannah stepped closer and turned him by the shoulder until he faced the stall door.

“Hands here.”

She guided one of his hands to the metal rail fixed along the partition. Then the other.

Dan looked at his fingers curled around the steel.

Behind him, Hannah lowered his wet underwear.

The fabric peeled coldly from his skin and slid down his legs. She tapped one ankle, then the other, and he stepped free without looking back.

The underwear joined the rest of his clothes in the transparent bag.

Dan’s grip tightened around the rail.

The person in the next stall shifted. Toilet paper rolled from its dispenser.

Hannah unfolded another wipe.

She cleaned the skin that the underwear had covered, working with the same brisk care she had used on his legs. Cold moisture passed over his hips and the backs of his thighs. Dan squeezed his eyes shut. Every touch felt magnified by the heat of the room and the thin metal walls surrounding them.

“Feet apart,” Hannah said.

A pair of brown boots stopped outside the stall door.

Dan watched them through the gap while he obeyed.

The wipe moved once more. Then it was gone.

“There,” Hannah said. “That’s better.”

Dan opened his eyes.

The boots remained outside.

Hannah was reaching into her handbag again.

Her arm descended much farther than the bottom of the bag should have allowed.

When it emerged, she held a folded white garment.

It expanded as she opened it.

Soft padding. Gathered edges. Broad plastic backing that crackled faintly in her hands.

Dan’s thoughts moved away from it.

He looked instead at the clean overalls hanging from the hook. At the apple printed across their seat. At his own bare feet on the tiled floor.

“What is that?”

Hannah shook it open.

“Something clean.”

The answer seemed sufficient for one second.

Then it didn’t.

“I don’t wear those.”

The word those held all the meaning he could not force himself to examine.

“It’s all right,” she said.

“No, I—”

“Dan.”

Her voice remained soft.

He fell silent.

Hannah opened the little bottle. A pale cloud settled over the white padding, carrying a soft, sweet smell that struck Dan with an instant of impossible recognition.

He had smelled it before.

Not recently. Not anywhere he could name.

Behind him, the powder bottle clicked shut.

Something dry and padded pressed against the small of his back.

“Feet apart.”

Dan obeyed again.

The garment came forward between his legs. Its thickness altered the way he stood, separating his thighs by a small but unavoidable distance. Hannah drew the front upward against his stomach and held it there with one hand.

A fastening tore free.

The sound was quiet and enormous.

One side tightened around his hip.

Then the other.

Dan stared at the stall door.

A faint blue pattern was reflected in the stainless-steel lock behind him. Clouds, perhaps. Or small animals. He could not make it out.

Hannah adjusted the gathered edges around his legs. Her fingers ran beneath each elastic seam, drawing it outward before letting it settle closely against his skin. The padding shifted with her hands, surrounding him more completely.

Its centre rested heavily between his thighs. The back rose against him with pillowy softness; the front sat high and warm across his lower stomach. When he shifted his weight, the entire garment answered with a papery whisper.

“What happened?” Dan asked.

“You had an accident.”

The phrase passed through him without settling.

An accident was spilled coffee. A fall. Mud on his jeans.

This was something else, surely.

Hannah tested the waistband with two fingers.

“All done.”

Dan released the rail and looked down.

The white garment rose nearly to his navel. It was too thick to resemble underwear, too softly constructed to resemble anything an adult man might knowingly put on.

His mind blurred the whole into pieces.

The pale blue printing.

The elastic at his thighs.

The warm compression against his hips.

The clean powder smell that had replaced the sharper scent of his wet clothes.

Hannah crouched again. She dried his feet carefully with fresh paper towels, pressing between his toes before drawing the clean wool socks over them. The thick knit rasped softly against his skin and trapped the remaining warmth around each foot.

She opened the fresh overalls at his feet.

“Step in.”

Dan did.

She drew the cotton up his legs. As the green fabric closed over the white padding, its bulk became less visible but more present. The soft lining pressed it snugly against him, containing the padded shape from every side.

A crinkle sounded when Hannah pulled the overalls over his hips.

Dan looked toward the next stall.

The shoes beneath the partition had gone still.

Hannah fastened the straps over his shoulders and smoothed his sweater down beneath the bib.

The new overalls fit differently from the first pair. More closely. The waist seemed higher. The legs slightly shorter. Their softness only emphasized the unfamiliar structure underneath.

Hannah turned him gently.

“Let me see.”

Dan allowed himself to be rotated.

Her eyes travelled over the front, then around his side. She tugged the sweater lower and flattened the cotton at his waist. One hand briefly cupped the fuller seat of the overalls, checking the way the hidden garment sat beneath them.

“There.”

“What did you put on me?”

She met his eyes.

For a moment, he believed she would name it.

Instead she touched his cheek.

“You’re dry.”

Relief came before horror.

Dan hated himself for it.

His skin was no longer cold. Nothing wet clung to his legs. The smell was gone. The clean padding held a small pocket of warmth around him, insulating him from the chill that had followed him out of the maze.

Hannah gathered the last wipes and paper towels into the disposal bag. The dirty clothes filled it heavily, the first green overalls pressed against the transparent plastic like a discarded version of the ones he now wore.

Dan stared at them.

The evidence of what had happened seemed to belong to someone else now.

Hannah tied the bag and returned the wipes and powder to her handbag. They vanished inside without altering its shape.

She pulled the wads of wet paper from his shoes, blotted the insoles once more and guided his feet into them. The clean socks met the lingering dampness immediately. Dan curled his toes, feeling moisture seep slowly into the wool.

Hannah tied both laces herself.

When she opened the stall, Dan did not object.

The woman waiting outside stepped back to give them room. Her gaze passed over Hannah, settled briefly on Dan’s clean overalls and softened.

“Poor thing,” she murmured.

Dan’s face flamed.

He did not know whether she meant him.

Hannah guided him to the sinks. She pumped soap into his hands and turned on the water. Dan washed because she had begun the task for him. He watched white foam collect between his fingers and tried to remember whether he had touched anything dirty.

The hand dryer began without warning.

Dan startled so violently that water splashed across the mirror.

A little girl beside him giggled.

Hannah took paper towels from the dispenser and dried his hands one at a time.

Dan let her.

Outside, the cold air struck his face. He inhaled deeply.

“I want to go home.”

It was the only thought that remained clear.

Hannah adjusted the collar of his coat.

“I know.”

“Can we ask Nate?”

“We’ll talk to them after we eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“They already ordered.”

That ended the conversation, although Dan could not have said why.

They began walking toward Harvest Row.

The padding moved around him with every step. It brushed between his thighs and rustled beneath the cotton. He tried lengthening his stride, but the bulk resisted, tugging at the gathered edges around his legs. When he shortened it, the movement became easier.

Hannah slowed automatically to match him.

They were halfway across the path when Dan’s right toe caught against the ground.

He stumbled into her.

Hannah steadied him with both hands.

“Careful.”

Dan looked down.

His lace had come undone.

The muddy ends lay across the toe of his shoe.

He stared at them, unable to understand how the knot had failed again. He could remember Hannah tying it inside the stall. He could see her fingers pulling the loops tight.

He began to crouch.

The thick garment beneath his overalls folded against his stomach, stopping him halfway. Its front compressed warmly against him while the padded back resisted the angle of his hips. He rocked uncertainly on his feet.

Hannah caught his elbow.

“I’ve got it.”

Dan straightened.

She knelt before him and tied the lace. He looked over her head toward the food court, where Nate and Sophie sat at a picnic table beneath an orange canopy.

Four meals waited on the table.

Sophie noticed them first. She touched Nate’s arm.

Both looked over.

Nate’s gaze travelled down to Hannah kneeling at Dan’s feet. Then to the clean green overalls. Then, for the briefest moment, to the fuller shape beneath them.

His face changed.

Not shock. Not confusion.

Recognition.

Sophie smiled at Dan with terrible tenderness.

Hannah finished the knot and patted the toe of his shoe.

“All fixed.”

She stood and took his hand.

Dan’s fingers closed around hers before he thought to resist.

Together, they walked toward the table. The concealed padding whispered with every step, but Dan could not make himself look down at it.

He could only see Nate and Sophie waiting for him, already knowing something Dan himself still could not bear to understand.