Evan Hunter - Me and Mr. Stenner

On Christmas Day, I was cruel to myself because I was trying so hard to make sure Daddy shared everything that I almost missed what was happening. I mean, how can you really enjoy opening presents when you’ve got to give a blow-by-blow report to a tape recorder because you’re afraid your father is all alone in a big empty house weeping by the fire. Which he wasn’t. Actually, he spent Christmas Day with his brother in Mamaroneck. The one thing I didn’t describe to the tape recorder was the bronze cat Mr. Stenner gave me.

The box was marked “To Abby from Mr. Stenner.” It was a small box, maybe two inches square and an inch high, but whatever was in it weighed a ton! What was in it was a gray-striped tabby lying on his back on two puffy blue pillows, and playing with a red ball. The pillows were enameled bronze, same as the cat, but they looked so soft it was almost impossible to believe they were made of metal. I opened the box and was reaching for the record button on the machine when I suddenly realized I shouldn’t be telling Dad about something Mr. Stenner had given me, because this might get Dad angry or depressed. Or maybe I just felt this was something private, between me and Mr. Stenner — something Dad shouldn’t share. I really don’t know.

But in that second when I saw the little striped pussycat holding the red ball between his front paws and sinking into those stuffed pillows, I thought of Singapore the cat who’d got run over, and I thought about Mr. Stenner helping me to bury Singapore out back, and about him helping me with the right words to say at the funeral. And I thought it was very kind and sensitive of him to buy me a miniature bronze cat for Christmas, something special from him to me, even though I had no idea at the time that we were starting a tradition.

That was the first of the cats.

I got the second cat on the day they were married.

Early that morning, Mom came into my bedroom wearing her serious face, so I knew we were going to have a meaningful talk. She sat on the edge of my bed, took my right hand between both her hands, and said, “Well, Abby, here we are.”

“Mm,” I said.

“How do you feel?” Mom said.

I shrugged.

“Are you happy?” Mom asked.

“Oh, Mom,” I said, “do you have to marry him?” and threw myself into her arms like a three-year-old and began weeping. “I don’t want you to marry him,” I said. “I don’t want him to be my stepfather, I want us to go back to Daddy, I want to live with Daddy, I want both of us to live with Daddy, I don’t like Mr. Stenner, I hate Mr. Stenner, please don’t marry him, Mom, I’ll do anything you ask in my entire lifetime, I swear to God, if you just wont marry him, just do me that one favor.”

“No,” Mom said.

“Mom, please, I’ll throw myself out the window if you marry him, I’ll throw myself in front of a car, I’ll...”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Mom said.

“Mom, can’t you see it’ll make me miserable? Can’t you see I’ll hate him as long as I live, I’ll...?”

“That would be a terrible shame,” Mom said. “He’s a good man, Abby. You’d be missing a lot by hating him instead of loving him.”

“Shit, I love Daddy!” I shouted.

Mom didn’t say anything to that. She didn’t even fine me ten cents. She just kept hugging me close and patting my shoulder and whispering things against my hair. Just before she left the room she said, “Will you be all right, darling?”

I nodded.

“Bless your heart,” she said, and went out.

When Mr. Stenner came in about ten minutes later, I was still crying. Mom always told him everything, but I could tell she hadn’t told him about the conversation we’d just had. He seemed honestly surprised to find me crying.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s the prob, Lum?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Need a handkerchief?”

“No.”

“Why the tears?”

“None of your business,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s something for you.”

“What is it?” I said, and sniffed.

“Little present,” he said, and handed me a small box wrapped with white paper and tied with a pink ribbon. “Commemorate this happy occasion,” he said, and then said, “Sob, sob.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” I said.

“Who’s making fun of you? Those are tears of joy, aren’t they?”

I shot him an angry look, and then loosened the ribbon, and tore the wrapping paper off the box, and lifted first the lid and then the square of cotton that was lying on top of the present. The present, of course, was another bronze cat. A striped tabby. Two inches tall. Standing on his hind legs. His tail trailing behind him on the floor. In his left paw, he was holding a bright red rose against his chest.

“That’s because you’ll be handing out the flowers,” Mr. Stenner said.

“I know,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

The day could not have been more perfect.

The wedding and reception were to take place in Arthur Randolph Knowles s eighteenth-century house, and he kept telling the assembled guests that he had ordered the day months in advance just to be absolutely certain of cloudless blue skies and balmy breezes. “One can’t be too careful when making requests of the Supreme Being, now can one?” he said, and I still thought he was an ass. My mother thought so, too, I could tell; but I guess she was willing to put up with almost anything on this, her wedding day.

There were some fifty guests in all, including “a giggle of little girls” (Mr. Stenner’s expression) who had been invited especially for me, friends of mine from the neighborhood where Dad still lived. There were four of them, including Julia D Amiano. It felt strange seeing the D’Amianos at the wedding; they d been friends of Mom’s and Dad’s before the split. Funny thing — I kept expecting to see Dad there. Expected him to walk through the door, shake hands with Mr. Stenner, kiss Mom on the cheek, do just what all the other guests were doing. It was weird. I mean, I knew Dad hadn’t been invited, knew in fact that it would’ve been positively ridiculous to have invited him. Yet I expected him to be there.

“Which one is Mr. Stenner?” Julia asked.

“The one with the eyeglasses. Standing near the fireplace.”

“With the brown hair?”

“Yeah, and the eyeglasses.”

“He’s nice-looking,” Julia said.

“You think so?” I said, and shrugged.

“Yeah,” she said. “Does he beat you?”

“Mr. Stenner?” I said, and burst out laughing. “Of course not!”

“Then maybe it won’t be so bad,” Julia said, and shrugged. “Getting married again, I mean.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Are you going to keep on living in this house?”

“We don’t live in this house,” I said.

“I thought you lived here.”

“No. Mr. Stenner’s lawyer lives here.”

“Which one is he?”

“The one over there in the gray suit.”

“The fat one?”

“Yeah, the pudgy one.”

“Yeah,” Julia said. “Him?”

“Yeah. His name is Arthur Randolph Knowles.”

“How come they’re getting married here, instead of in a church?” Julia asked.

“Well, there’ll be a minister and all,” I said.

“Which one is the minister?”

“The one over there. Near the window.”

“Why is his nose red?”

“Mom says he’s a drunk.”

“Why’d they hire a drunken minister?”

“He’s not drunk now,” I said. “And you don’t hire ministers. He married Mr. Knowles s son here in this same house, and Mr. Knowles thought it would be appropriate if he did the job for Mom and Mr. Stenner, too. Since it was the same house and all.”