Гвен Купер - Love Saves The Day

Laura’s voice is hesitant. “So why did she stop? Being a DJ, I mean,” she adds, when Anise looks confused. “She talked about it sometimes, and even when I was a kid I could tell how much she loved it. Why did she give up the way she did?”

Anise’s eyes widen. “Because of you,” she says. “Because once you came along, nothing else was more important. Not even her music. She used to say you were her music.”

Laura’s fingers have been stroking my fur, and the pressure from the tips becomes a bit harder, as if her fingers are curling up. I start to purr, hoping it will ease her tension. “But then, why did she have that record store? Why did she raise me in that neighborhood?” Laura is starting to sound angry. “Why did we live the way we did if I was more important to her than anything else?”

“Go sing that sad song to your husband. My mother didn’t love me enough .” Anise looks as mad as Laura just sounded. “You forget— I was there. What kid was ever happier than you were? What kid ever had a mother who adored her the way your mother adored you?” Anise’s hands rise into the air and start making gestures. “Your mother gave you a family ,” she insists. “She gave you a life . Isn’t that what every parent wants, to give their children what they never had? Do you think I can’t tell what you’re hoping to give your children just by looking at this apartment?”

“You haven’t seen me in fifteen years.” Laura’s voice is low and sharp. “You don’t know anything about me or what I’m trying to do.”

“Don’t I?” Anise’s voice doesn’t get louder, exactly, but it sounds more powerful. “I know you’ve been letting one horrible day roam around in your head like a monster you can’t kill and won’t ever let die. And yes, I know how bad that day was for you,” she adds when Laura takes a breath as if she’s about to interrupt. “Bad things happen and people spend months and years trying to recover because they don’t get the kind of help from friends that your mother did. Help she didn’t get from those grandparents of yours, who you don’t even remember because they never cared enough to meet you. You had the Mandelbaums for grandparents and that girl who lived upstairs—what was her name? Maria something?—for your sister, and Noel from the store and everybody in the neighborhood your mom made a point of knowing so they’d all look out for you. You had a mother who picked you up at school every afternoon and built an entire life around being able to spend time with you. And she was lucky, because not everybody has the chance or the resources to do what she did.”

Laura doesn’t say anything when Anise’s rush of words stops. I look up and see the skin of her throat tightening, like those times when she wanted to say something to Sarah, but couldn’t.

“Look,” Anise says. “It’s not my place to tell you what you should think of your mother, Laura. But don’t ever think she didn’t give you enough. Sarah gave you everything . She gave you a family. And here you sit—smart, successful, and happily married, so she obviously did something right. I don’t think you’ll ever know”—Anise leans forward and touches Laura’s hand—“how proud of you she was.”

Laura’s touches the tips of her fingers lightly to Anise’s, then moves them through my fur again. I press my forehead against her arm and think about what Anise said, about Laura and Josh, and about how Sarah gave me a family, too.

When Laura speaks, her voice sounds almost as hoarse as Anise’s laugh. “I still haven’t cried for her.” She raises one hand to run fingers through her hair, just like Sarah used to. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I can’t. I haven’t been able to.”

The inside corners of Anise’s eyebrows rise, making her face look softer. “Sarah would have been proud of what you and Josh are doing for Alphaville and the people who live in that building.”

“It’s just Josh.” Laura clears her throat. “I haven’t done anything.”

Anise smiles and tilts her head to one side. It’s the way she used to look at Sarah sometimes. “You will.”

Later that night, after Anise has left and it’s just Josh and Laura and me sitting together in the living room, Laura tells Josh, “I’d like to help with what you’re doing for this building on Avenue A.”

The corners of his eyes push up in a smile. “Really?”

Laura starts to smile, too, and her voice sounds casual, but her eyes are still serious. “Why not?” she says. “Sleeping twelve hours a day is completely overrated.”

Just when I finally think I have humans figured out, I realize again what mysterious creatures they really are.

16

Prudence

THE PHONE RINGS WITH TWO SHORT RINGS INSTEAD OF ONE LONG one, the way it does when the man who lives in the lobby downstairs is calling to say someone is on their way up to see us. Laura looks up in surprise from where she’s sitting on the couch with me on one side of her and a stack of papers bigger than me on the other. On the coffee table are a lot of thick books that Laura went to get from her office one night. Josh is out at a meeting, so it’s just Laura and me by ourselves in the apartment.

“Yes?” Laura says when she answers the phone. After a pause she says, “Of course, send him up.” Then she runs to the little bathroom in the short hallway near the front door, where she pulls a brush through her hair and splashes cold water on her face. I stretch and walk over to the entrance of the kitchen, which is also next to the front door, to help Laura in case this surprise is a bad one. She’s patting her face dry when the doorbell rings.

“Perry!” Laura says, as she pulls the door open. “What a surprise!” There’s a smile on her face, and she reaches out one hand to hold the stranger’s for a moment, but her eyes are cautious.

Perry’s eyes aren’t cautious like Laura’s, but they look at her closely without seeming to. When he says, “You look good. Better than good, actually,” Laura’s face turns pink. The lids slide closed over his eyes so briefly it almost isn’t noticeable, as if Laura’s face changing colors has confirmed something he suspected. “May I come in?” he asks.

“Of course.” She leads him into the living room, where he sits on one of the chairs facing the couch. “Can I get you anything?”

“A glass of water would be nice,” he says, and Laura walks into the kitchen to get it for him. Now I’m standing near the other entrance to the kitchen—the one that opens onto the dining room table and living room—and from here I take a closer look at Perry. Some humans, when they see a cat, immediately want to pet her and say something like, Come here, kitty, come here . Some humans look annoyed (especially if they’re allergic), and some humans don’t even notice cats at all. Perry doesn’t do any of these things. He sits in his chair, his shoulders and spine held in a way that looks alert yet completely comfortable, with the kind of control that cats have mastered but that humans rarely can. He looks right back at me with his dark brown eyes, and in them I see a hint of amusement.

I notice his outfit, which is a jacket that matches his pants, both of them made from a material that looks wonderfully soft, yet doesn’t bunch up or wrinkle the way a lot of humans’ clothes do when they’re sitting. Around his neck is a piece of dark yellow material that some of the human men on TV wear, although I’ve never seen Josh wear one. His shoes are black and perfectly clean, what Sarah would have called “immaculate.” I can tell why it used to be so important to Laura to make Perry happy with her work, and suddenly I’m glad the fur on my paws has grown almost completely back.