door and the fox followed me right into the house. If I’d had any doubt it was a familiar, that evaporated when it stopped to brush its feet on the mat so as not to track dirt inside.
I stared at it for a minute, and it turned to look at me like, “Well? Now what?”
“Shower first,” I told it as I closed and locked the door behind us. “You’re not coming into the kitchen until you smell less like a dumpster soaked in pee.”
The fox dropped its head to stare at the tile on the entryway floor, and I had a pang of guilt.
“Hey there, buddy, it’s not your fault. We’ve just gotta fix it is all.” I set the box of Dad’s ashes on the table next to the entryway, the mail and my keys on top of it and suit jacket balled up next to them, and headed for the bathroom without looking back, expecting the fox to follow.
All that was left was to figure out how to get the fox into the shower and cleaned up without killing both of us.
When we were kids, Beez’d had a dog, and I’ve got to admit, that spaniel colored my view of dogs as a species. He’d been high strung and annoying as hell, barking like mad at everyone who came to the door and taking forever to warm up to people. Every time I had helped her give him a bath, he sat in the tub and howled like we were skinning him, not soaping him up. Then when he was wet and slippery and covered in soap, he would try to escape.
There was nothing for it but to jump right in. Unceremoniously, I reached down, picked up the fox around the middle, and set it in the bathtub. It didn’t struggle or yowl, just looked around the bathroom, then stared up at me confusedly. Like I’d told a joke and it was waiting for the punchline, or like it thought it was being punked and someone with a camera was going to jump out any second.
I considered taking off my shirt, but if the claws came out, I’d be sorry for that. Besides, the worst-case scenario was that the shirt got shredded, which might be for the best. I shouldn’t wear it again anyway.
So I pulled out my phone and put it as far from the tub as I could get, then sat on the edge. “Okay, so this is probably gonna be a little stressful, but I swear, it’s for the best.” I put a calming hand on the fox’s back and turned the faucet on.
It leaned forward to sniff, and almost immediately started lapping it up, despite it being warm tap water. Not that I thought foxes were big into bottled and chilled Evian, but I sure felt like a self-involved jerk, worrying about getting clawed when the poor fox was probably dehydrated and hungry.
“We’ll get you some food when we’re done here. It’ll be okay. Just, you know, don’t freak out at getting wet, okay?”
Without turning away from where it was still lapping at the stream of water, the fox looked at me in question.
I grabbed the detachable shower head, and slowly, so as not to startle the fox, flipped the switch to move the water flow from the faucet. It continued to lap at empty air for a second, confusedly, and when it realized the water had moved, it went for the shower head.
It didn’t try to dodge the warm spray at all—didn’t seem the least bit put off by being soaked to the skin. Just kept sneaking licks at the water when I got the spout close to its head.
When I figured it was wet enough, I set the shower head in front of it with the pressure turned down low, letting the water burble into the tub so the fox could drink its fill, and reached for my shampoo. It didn’t struggle at all as I soaped it up—soaped him up, I discovered as I went. He stood there and watched me with fascination when he was finished drinking.
Once, he leaned in and licked at my soapy hand before pulling away, disgustedly licking at his chops to get rid of the flavor of soap. Apparently, foxes didn’t like it any better than humans.
When I picked up the shower head again, the water was properly warm, not just lukewarm, and the fox leaned into the stream, a little like I did after a