Софи Келли - A Tale Оf Two Kitties

I caught the inside door and headed up the stairs. I knocked on the apartment door and Rebecca opened it right away. She had one arm in her jacket.

“Hello, dear,” she said. These days she was wearing her silver hair in a short, layered cut, which showed off her neck and cheekbones.

“Hi,” I said, reaching over to hold the front of the coat so she could get her other arm in. “I’m sorry I didn’t ring the bell, but your visitor was just leaving so I just came up.”

“I didn’t have any visitor,” Rebecca said, pulling down one of Ella King’s scarves from the wooden coatrack and wrapping it twice around her neck. She frowned for a minute and then her expression cleared. “It must have been someone visiting Leo.”

“Leo?” I said slowly. “You don’t mean Leo Janes, do you?”

“Yes, I do,” she said, smiling at me. “Simon’s father. Have you met him?”

I nodded, reaching for the tote bag that I knew held her shoes for tai chi and a towel. “Just a little while ago. He drove Mia to work.”

“He used to live here in Mayville Heights,” Rebecca said. She stopped to lock the apartment door and we started down the stairs together. “He hasn’t been back in—goodness, let me think—it must be more than twenty years.” She adjusted the scarf at her neck. “When Everett heard that Leo was coming to spend some time with Simon and Mia he offered him the apartment.” She made a gesture in the direction of the front unit.

I wasn’t surprised. Everett may have been relentless when it came to business but he was a softie when it came to anything related to family. I remembered how he’d flown in Rebecca’s son, Matthew, from a remote job site in the Canadian far north, where he was working as a geologist, to surprise her on their wedding day.

“Mary told me a little about the family,” I said.

Rebecca glanced sideways at me. “So you know,” she said, not phrasing her comment as a question.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“The whole thing is just so sad.”

I moved ahead of her to open the door to the entryway.

“Hold on a minute, dear,” she said. “I need to check the clock.” She moved to the left side of the stairs and I noticed there was a small mantel clock settled in a niche in the wall. She checked the clock face and then nodded. “It’s still running. Good.”

“I never noticed that before,” I said.

“The clock came with the house,” Rebecca said. “It’s been there for a good fifty years, but it’s temperamental.”

I nodded, reaching for the door handle. “I know. My father has one just like it at home. Do you keep the key taped to the back?”

She nodded. “In a little envelope. Before I did that I misplaced the darned thing twice.”

I held the door and we stepped into the entry. I waited while Rebecca locked up.

“Maybe if Meredith hadn’t died things would have turned out differently,” she continued as we headed down the walkway toward the truck. “Maybe Leo could have forgiven them both. That doesn’t mean I’m excusing what she and Victor did. It’s just that sometimes we don’t get a do-over in life, a chance to fix our mistakes, but I think it would be nice if we could.” She sighed softly.

I thought about what Mia had said to me about the word “sorry” not being an eraser.

• • •

When Rebecca and I got to tai chi Taylor King was waiting for her, sitting on the bench beneath the coat hooks, a brown paper shopping bag at her feet. Her long red hair was pulled back in a French braid and she was wearing a black T-shirt and black-and-gray-patterned leggings.

Rebecca smiled when she caught sight of the teen. “Look at your hair!” she exclaimed.

Taylor got to her feet, a huge smile spreading across her face.

Rebecca made a circular motion with her index finger. “Let me see the back.”

Taylor obligingly turned around.

“Excellent,” Rebecca said. “I knew you’d be able to do it.”

The teenager looked at me, a flush of pink in her cheeks. “Rebecca taught me how to do a French braid. She’s a hair ninja.”

“That she is,” I agreed, grinning at Rebecca as I slipped off my jacket. She’d been a hairdresser and she kept current as far as new styles and techniques went. She’d fixed an ill-advised pixie cut I’d gotten before I came to Mayville Heights and gotten me through the awkward growing-out stage fairly painlessly. Now my dark hair almost brushed my shoulders.

Rebecca gestured at the paper shopping bag. “You brought the bags,” she said to Taylor, her smile widening.

The teen nodded. “I brought two and if you don’t like either of these I have a couple of others that might work.” Taylor collected and sold vintage purses. She’d turned a hobby into a little business that was going to help pay her way through college.

“A possible Christmas gift for Ami,” Rebecca said to me. She sat down on the bench and set her own bag at her feet. Taylor joined her and pulled out a small, black lace evening bag with a gold clasp and black satin strap.

“That’s pretty,” I said.

“It came from an estate sale in Pucketville,” Taylor said. “Oh, and Mom said to tell you she got the yarn for your scarf, so she’ll probably start it this week.”

“Tell her thank you,” I said.

Ella King was a talented fiber artist. She was knitting a linen stitch scarf for my sister, Sara, for Christmas.

Rebecca was holding the evening bag on her lap. She looked up at us. “Do you think Ami would like this?” Ami was Everett’s only grandchild. She was away at college studying voice and piano. Ami adored Rebecca, and I knew she would be happy with the paper shopping bag if it came from her.

“I think so,” I said, stepping into the canvas shoes I wore for class.

Taylor pulled out another evening bag. This one was a beaded silver-tone clutch with a silver chain strap.

“That’s beautiful, too,” Rebecca said. “How on earth am I going to decide?”

I leaned down toward her. “We both know you’re going to buy both of those bags,” I whispered.

She winked at me. “Well, of course I am, but I want to be able to tell Everett that I tried to pick just one.”

I smiled back at her. “Your secret is safe with me,” I said, heading inside. I walked over to join Maggie at the small table she had set up for tea.

She smiled. “Hi. Did Rebecca and Sandra have any luck figuring out who any of those photos might belong to?” Her hands were wrapped around a blue pottery mug and I could smell spices and oranges.

“Between the two of them they recognized the people in eight of the pictures,” I said. “The only way we’re going to figure out who’s in all of the other ones is to somehow get people into the library to look at them.”

She took a sip of her tea. It smelled so good I was almost tempted to make myself a cup. Almost.

“Hey, guess who I met?” she said. “Simon’s father. He came into the shop and bought a tea set. He had such a warm energy around him.”

“He drove Mia to work. He’s a nice man.” I glanced across the room. Roma had just come in with Eddie. I raised a hand in hello and they started over to us.

Maggie followed my gaze. “I love a happy ending,” she said softly.

I nodded. “Me too.”

It was wonderful to see Roma so happy. She was getting married. After insisting she was too old for hockey player Eddie Sweeney and ending their relationship, she’d realized that how she and Eddie felt about each other was more important than the number of years between them. So she’d proposed to him in the middle of my kitchen and he’d happily said yes.

“Hey, Eddie, are you going to stay for class?” Maggie asked.

Roma tipped her head to one side and smiled up at him, her dark eyes sparkling. “Are you?” she asked.