Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

“Joyce!” I whispered.

She raised her head. “What?”

“What the hell is a sheave?”

She smiled and laid her head back down. “Dixie, I have no friggin idea.”

The sun was coming up now, and there were a few early birds on the path. A couple of retirees rolled by on a matching pair of bright yellow bicycles. A man in red sweatpants and a Mets baseball cap walked by, briskly pumping his arms up and down to the beat of the music playing through his headphones.

Rufus and I made our way back to his house, both of us feeling a bit shell-shocked. I left him with a peanut-butter-filled chew toy, and, with a kiss on the nose, assured him that our afternoon walk would be a little less dramatic.

3

I thought about the morning’s proceedings as I made my way over to the Suttons’ house at the opposite end of the Key. Most of the time my work is pretty predictable. I check the food and water, I let the dogs out to do their business, I clean the litter boxes, I brush the fur, I give some hugs and kisses, I wave around a peacock feather or a piece of cheese, and then it’s on to the next pet. I have it down to a very smooth routine, and that’s the way I like it.

Taking on the responsibility of a young if not underage illegal alien with a newborn baby is not routine. It’s crazy. The best that could happen was Joyce and I would give the girl a little comfort for a short time. The worst was that when we sent her on her way she’d have tasted a better life and would hate her old one even more. When I tried to imagine how bad it must have been in her home, so bad that she felt compelled to risk her life and the life of her unborn child to go to a foreign country and live in a box … my mind skittered away in guilt and shame and helplessness. I was born in a country that allows me enormous advantages, and I was no more deserving than that poor girl was. I was just luckier.

I pulled into the Suttons’ driveway and flipped through my keys, which I keep on a big ring like a French chatelaine. Their Sophie is a tuxedo cat, mostly black with white boots, a white bib, and just a dip of white at the end of her tail. She met me at the door with some serious tail choreography and an excited thrrrip! to let me know I was late. While I prepared her breakfast, she purred and circled around my feet.

I have always prided myself on being a good citizen. I pay my taxes, I vote, I don’t litter, and I don’t speed … much. I get mad when I see a flag flying in the rain, and I feel a surge of pride when I sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But if I helped this young mother I would be breaking the law. I would be aiding an illegal alien, which is wrong. At least, it’s wrong in the eyes of the law.

I took Sophie out to the back porch overlooking the bay and brushed her. Or, to be precise, I held the brush steady and Sophie did all the work, cooing and purring as she pressed the full length of her body through the brush, first one side and then the other. I had never given much thought to the immigration brouhaha, but now I thought about the poem at the Statue of Liberty that epitomizes what it means to live in a democracy: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” I thought about what Jesus said to his followers: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” I’m not very religious or political, but some things are either right or wrong, and you don’t need to belong to a certain church or party to know which is which. Sending a homeless young woman with a newborn baby out into a world that was all too ready to label her a pariah was just plain wrong.

When I finished up my morning rounds, I headed over to the Village Diner, which is practically my home away from home. Like most of my pet clients, I am a creature of habit. Pretty much every day of the year, I go to the diner and have basically the same breakfast. Two eggs over easy with extra crispy home fries and a hot biscuit. There are a couple of booths in the front that have a nice view of the street, but I usually take one of the booths in the back. My friend Judy is the waitress there, and by the time I’m sliding into my usual spot she’s sliding a cup of coffee in front of me. It’s a well-choreographed dance we’ve been doing for I don’t know how many years.

Judy is long limbed and quick, with honey brown hair, piercing hazel eyes, and a sprinkling of freckles on her nose. She’s left a line of no-good men in her trail—all bums, cheaters, liars, losers, and sons of bitches, or as Judy calls them, dicks. I’ve held her hand through almost every one of them, and she held mine when I hit that bump in the road I mentioned before. Although I rarely see her outside the diner, she’s probably my closest friend in the world other than my brother.

This morning, while Judy was pouring my coffee, I slipped into the restroom first. Normally there’s maybe a little cat hair and some dog slobber to wash off, but not today. I pulled a few towels from the dispenser and wadded them up into a makeshift sponge. I scrubbed between my fingers and under my nails. I scrubbed my arms up to the elbow. I scrubbed like a sailor swabbing the deck of a shrimp boat. I’m sure I’d gotten it all off before, but there’s something about having blood on your hands that makes you feel a little panicky, like the lady in that Shakespeare play—“Out! Out! Damn spot!”

When I felt like a certified clean freak, I tossed the towels in the trash pail and smoothed the wrinkles out of my shorts. I studied myself in the mirror. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse, but it seems like I’m always getting mixed up in stuff I probably shouldn’t be.

Judy was waiting for me at the table. She was twirling a pencil in her hair and had a particularly mischievous grin on her face.

“Your boyfriend was here earlier,” she said.

I slid into the booth, feigning ignorance. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh.” She shifted her weight to the other hip. “You know, he left me an extra big tip and was giving me all kinds of smiles. I think he might be a little sweet on me, just so you know.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, cupping my hands around the coffee mug. “You should hop right on that.” I wasn’t taking the bait. I know Judy far too well.

She went on. “Well, I’ll tell you, it was distracting. And I think he’s just so damn tired of waiting for you he’s ready to settle for little ol’ me.”

“That must have been very upsetting for you,” I said.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’d settle with him any day of the week. In fact, I’d settle with that boy every day of the week!”

She flipped her hair off her shoulders and sashayed back toward the kitchen, swaying her hips for extra effect.

I had to admit, Judy was probably right. Ethan probably was tired of waiting for me. And why I kept him waiting, I had no idea. Ethan Crane is an attorney in town, and he happens to be one of the most devastatingly beautiful specimens of man you could ever hope to lay eyes or hands on. He could carry around one of those numbered ticket machines, like the ones they have at deli counters, and women would line up for blocks. We’ve had a sort of on-again, off-again flirtation going, but something’s always gotten in the way. And that something has always been me.

Five years ago—five years, six months, and a couple of days, to be exact—I lost the two most important things in the world to me: Christy, my little girl, and my husband, Todd. A ninety-year-old man plowed his car into them in a grocery store parking lot. He later said he meant to step on the brake pedal, but instead he stepped on the gas, and they were both killed instantly, or so I was told.