by Dalena Storm
“Hello?” Rosa whispered in a barely audible voice, and then she listened really hard, but there wasn't any response. The little girl was suddenly very lonely in the big house all by herself.
The lights flickered again and Rosa decided it was something scary after all.
If it was a ghost, how did she talk to it? Rosa tried to remember based on the scary movies she’d seen her parents watching when she’d snuck out of bed. She didn’t think ghosts had voices, but she was pretty sure they could move stuff around.
“If you are a ghost,” she whispered in a voice a little louder and a bit more brave, “pick up a book from the shelf and move it in the air.”
She turned to stare at the bookshelf, then held her breath and waited. Was that a wiggle? No. Nothing happened. It must not be a ghost after all, just a boring dying light bulb.
Rosa slumped back down, but then the lights started flickering wildly, off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on.
Rosa leaped to her feet. "Stop! It's not funny!"
But the lights kept on flickering. Something twisted in Rosa's belly, and she ran from the room without closing the door behind her.
Mom! She was about to shout, but the word caught in her throat because there was someone standing at the end of the hallway staring at her. She stopped.
It took a moment, but then Rosa recognized the shape of her aunt. “Auntie Sam?” she called, her voice only quivering a little. Auntie Sam was staring at her and smiling, but her face didn’t look right. Actually, the person at the other end of the hall didn’t look like her Auntie Sam at all. It was her body but the face was different, like it belonged to a stranger.
"Hello, little girl," Auntie Sam said like she didn't even know Rosa's name.
“What do you want?” Rosa demanded.
“Do you like pie?”
For the first time, Rosa noticed a whole pie in Auntie Sam’s hands. She must have gotten some on her shirt, because the front of her chest was stained with red and it looked like she had some on the back of her hand, too.
“What kind is it?” said Rosa, tempted by the potential of dessert. She thought about the flavors that were red. “Cherry?”
“I like pie,” said Auntie Sam, “and I like you.”
“Okay,” Rosa said, but the word came out wobbly because even though she did like Auntie Sam—she loved Auntie Sam—she did not like the way Auntie Sam was acting right now. It was even scarier than the ghost flickering lights in the bedroom with the books.
“One fish, two fish, red fish, blue. I like pie, and I like you,” Auntie Sam sang the words so that they sounded like a silly song, and Rosa cracked a smile in spite of herself. That sounded more like the Auntie Sam she remembered, making storybook rhymes to get her to laugh.
“I like pie,” volunteered Rosa, “but not green eggs and ham.”
“Then ‘Let’s eat pie’ said Sam I Am.” Auntie Sam grinned but it wasn't a happy grin. It was too big, and it didn't fit her face like her usual smile. It reminded Rosa of the Grinch and the way he smiled before ruining all the Whos Christmases in the holiday special.
Rosa hesitated, but then chastised herself for being silly. There were no such things as ghosts or Grinches. They were just make-believe. Auntie Sam was real, and she was holding a great big cherry pie just for her.
“Come here,” called Auntie Sam, balancing the pie on one hand and holding out the other—the one without the red stuff on it—to Rosa. “Let’s have a little treat. Just you and me.”
“Like on my birthday?” Rosa asked, remembering another time when she and her aunt had snuck a dessert for themselves.
Auntie Sam nodded, the Grinchy grin never leaving her face. “Yes. Exactly like that.”
Bianca was trying to play a game with her family like nothing was wrong, even though her entire life was falling apart around her. Sam was a mess. She hated to say it—to even think it—but it was true, she had to admit it. She’d never seen her daughter like this, not even when things had been at their worst during her divorce from Peter. Having her at home, outside of the insulating bubble of the hospital, made the truth so much more obvious. Bianca couldn't even blame it on the accident or the drugs the doctors had given Sam anymore.
And now Peter had taken her outside, out of her sight. What were they doing out there, anyway? Fighting? Kissing? He’d better not lay a hand on her. Bianca would cut them both off. Thank God Sam had never gotten pregnant when she’d been married to that man. Not that Bianca didn’t want another grandchild—oh, she did, and Sam’s would be beautiful—but then again, Peter’s wouldn’t be. If you took beautiful and combined it with…but no, that was too harsh. Peter hadn’t always been as he was now. Once, Sam had loved him.
Bianca shivered. The wine was getting to her. She’d lost count of how many drinks she’d had during this party she wished she hadn’t thrown. It was never-ending—life was never-ending. Sam was eating her out of house and home, literally. Never had a cliché that was so absurdly, obviously hyperbolic been so actually true. And now she was mingling outside, in her vulnerable state, with the man who’d stolen the best years of her life.
“I’ll just go and check on them out there,” Bianca said, rising abruptly from her chair and placing her cards down on the table without even bothering to turn them over. She went through the kitchen toward the front windows. It would be too motherly to go out after them, and Sam, even if she was different, was not a child, but it was so dark outside. Bianca couldn’t see a thing—just rows of street lamps, and a few blocks down, one that was out.
She looked at the corner that should have been lit. She hadn’t noticed before the light was out, but supposed it must have been for a while. She hoped they hadn’t gone far. She hoped Peter was behaving himself.
Peter. She had such mixed feeling about that man. On one hand, he was a no-good asshole, failure, drunk. And on the other…
The other hand came up empty. It always did, no matter how she tried to weigh it out.
Bianca sighed. The wine was giving her a headache. She should bring out the pie and be a good hostess to the rest of her family.
Turning, she noticed one of the pies was missing. In the place where it had been, a faint string of crumbs had been arranged into a name.
Rosa, it read.
Bianca knew then it hadn’t just been motherly instinct gone awry, or an effect of too much wine. Something was definitely wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The kitten stayed close while Madeline and Jimmy feasted, and Madeline kept one eye on her, following her feline movements as she stalked around the room. Half the time it seemed like the kitten’s attention was on Jimmy in a distinctly non-catlike, almost human way, and the other half of the time she was distracted by bits of fluff and the activities of the other cats. In any case, she didn’t seem to be paying much attention at all to Madeline, and Madeline could feel herself growing restless as well as becoming slightly irritated at being ignored—by a cat. The feeling was oddly familiar.
“Do you believe people go somewhere after they die?” Madeline wondered out loud during a pause in the conversation. It was a weird question, but Jimmy didn’t seem to notice.
“Go somewhere?” he asked, giving her an amused little smile. “You mean like Heaven?”
“Kind of, yeah. Or somewhere else. Another life, maybe.”
“It’s funny you should ask,” said Jimmy, resting his glass at his side and looking away. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind, and then, decided, he fixed his eyes on Madeline. “Do you want to hear a funny story?”
Before Madeline could say anything, Jimmy launched into a long and extravagant speech.
Jimmy had grown up in a string of foster homes. The fourth one had been the best on a list of bad experiences. At that house, he’d had three foster brothers and two foster sisters, but none of them had gotten along with him. They’d all been biologically related, and white, and his foster mother—her name was Mary�
�had favored them, giving them bigger portions and spending time with them, asking them how their days went and taking them on picnics, stuff like that. Jimmy had been left to fend for himself, taking food the others were given when they weren’t looking, punching them in the noses if it came to it, but generally doing his best to keep to himself. Stu, his foster dad, had beaten him a couple of times for insubordination, though Jimmy didn’t recall ever actually being insubordinate. Then, maybe because Mary was harboring some kind of guilt in her soul for the way they’d mistreated him, on his tenth birthday she took him to get a cat.
Decades later, Jimmy could still remember that day clearly. They’d gone to the pound and asked if there were any cats that had been picked up recently and not claimed. The boy who worked there—he was hardly more than a teenager—had gone into the back and returned a moment later with a shorthaired, gray-striped, orange-eyed tom. The boy had carried the cat under its arms, so the legs were all spread out and Jimmy could see the patches of hair missing from the belly, as well as one long scar.
The cat, like Jimmy, was a fighter.
Jimmy named the cat Elvis before he was set down on the counter. Elvis didn’t meow or hiss, but he had given Jimmy a look like steel. It was a You don’t fuck with me, I don’t fuck with you sort of look. Jimmy recognized it because he used it a lot himself.
They took Elvis home and because Jimmy knew to leave him alone, he quickly became Elvis’ favorite. The other kids would harass Elvis and try to pet him or grab him while Jimmy would retreat to the bed in his corner of the room. After a while, Elvis would follow him and sit at the foot of Jimmy’s bed. He never looked at Jimmy directly when he was nearby, but Jimmy knew Elvis was paying attention to him. He could feel it.
Jimmy developed a habit of saving a scrap of meat from dinner in his napkin for Elvis. He’d tuck it in his pocket and wait until they were excused from the table, and then when the other kids were either not around or asleep and couldn’t tattle, he’d deliver the treat. Elvis would appear from wherever he’d been all day and take the morsel straight from Jimmy’s fingers. No matter where Elvis was—out back around by the flowerbeds or down the block chasing birds in the park—Jimmy could trust that Elvis would slink in and sidle his way up to Jimmy, ready for whatever it was Jimmy could offer him that day.
What Jimmy had with Elvis felt like a real friendship, the kind two true fighters could manage. Elvis was the only friend Jimmy had. He'd had to change schools and never got to see his old pals anymore, and he sure as hell didn't get along with the friends of the other kids in the family. They'd harass Jimmy and treat him like dirt, try and get him to do stuff for them, call him stupid and a bastard. Jimmy did his best to ignore it, and if the house were full of idiots, Jimmy would go to the park and shoot some hoop. If the basketball were flat, which it often was, he’d sit on the merry-go-round, not going around and around, but just leaning back and looking up at the sky, waiting for the purpose of life to drop down on him.
When he’d gone home after one such day, his foster parents had been fighting. They didn’t fight as much as some of his other foster parents had, but they still had their rows. Jimmy had gone to his room, too depressed to even read a comic book. A week later Elvis had gotten sick.
“He’s all right, probably just tired,” Mary said when Jimmy pointed out how Elvis was sitting in the corner, not in one of his usual places, and not moving.
“I don’t think so,” Jimmy said in a knowing sort of way. “I think something’s wrong.”
Mary hadn’t listened. A month later the whole lot of them left on a big family vacation and left Jimmy behind to watch the house. Jimmy and Elvis had the place to themselves for a week and it should have been fun—a week of freedom—but Jimmy spent it worrying himself sick over Elvis’s worsening health. He tried giving him leftover bits of chicken from the fridge, but the cat wouldn’t chew, only look at him sadly. Elvis started making eye contact and Jimmy returned it. It was like the cat knew he didn’t have much time left, and his pride had left him and he was searching for something in Jimmy’s eyes.
On the fourth day, when the meat was gone and Jimmy was going to have to move on to Spam and packages of ramen noodles, Jimmy couldn’t find Elvis in the house. He was in a full-blown panic by the time he finally found the cat in the park, near the swings. He had seen the way Elvis was lying in the gravel, how there was an unnatural stillness about him, and he rushed over. Elvis was still breathing, but barely.
Jimmy sat down on the ground next to Elvis, and when the cat found his eyes, Jimmy started to talk. “I wish I knew what to tell you,” Jimmy said, stroking Elvis’ head before resting his hand on his side. The cat's breathing was shallow, but Jimmy could feel him purring—a faint purr that might have been more out of pain than pleasure, more need than contentment. “I don’t know if there’s any point to any of this either, friend. We live, we suffer, and we die. We don’t get much say in how any of it goes, but if I’ll go anywhere after all of this is over, then I’ll tell you what: you will, too.”
Moments later he felt Elvis go still. No dramatic yowling, no twitching, no licks of farewell, just a quiet passing, and the purring beneath his hand—the faint tremble—stopped. Jimmy would never admit to having cried, but he had. He’d held Elvis, felt his soft, still-warm body, and he hadn’t wanted to let him go. It was hard to bury a friend, and harder to think he hadn’t been able to comfort him. But sometimes there wasn’t any comfort.
Sometimes things just hurt.
That was when Jimmy had made his rule about not getting attached to any cats. But, from that point on, Jimmy made it his habit to observe them, especially the strays. Eventually, he felt the miracle of each of them, of their limited time on earth. He named them sometimes, and watched as they fought over territory, listened to their voices in the night, and kept a careful distance. He found himself developing an intuitive sense of cats and their shadowy, elusive spirits. Of all the things he watched, the birth of a new litter of kittens was what touched him the most, particularly when the littlest of the litter was pushed aside and left to fend on its own. Jimmy saw himself in those kittens—abandoned, orphaned, cast out. Everyone needed a home, he decided, and even though Jimmy couldn’t provide much, he did what he could.
He’d done his best over the years to show everyone that even used cats could have a second life if given a chance.
When Jimmy had finished his story, Madeline wasn’t sure what to say. She tried, “So, what you’re saying is you’re good at understanding cats?”
“Now, just a second,” said Jimmy, raising one finger in the air. “Here comes the relevant bit.”
Madeline lifted an eyebrow, wondering what could be coming next after all that.
“If I take a cat and hold her—for instance, little Mickey here—”
The kitten had been hanging close by while Madeline and Jimmy chatted, and Jimmy reached down now and scooped her up from the floor where she’d been watching them with half-lidded eyes.
“I can get an impression of what happened to them in their past life. I mean, before they came to my store. It’s part of what helps me rehabilitate them. By figuring out what went wrong in their life before they got to me, I can get them what they need, whether that’s time alone, or mothering, or medical care. Now, sometimes the information I get from these sessions is really detailed. In a few cases—and you might be impressed by this,” he pointed emphatically at Madeline, “I’ve been able to verify information by tracking down a cat’s previous owners and it’s turned out to be correct.” He paused to let that sink in and Madeline tried to look impressed. Jimmy set Mickey back down on the floor and the kitten scurried away while he rubbed his hands together, shrugging. “But anyhow, whatever you want to call that ability, and whether you even want to believe it or not, it’s helped me to help them.”
“Cool,” said Madeline, still not knowing how this answered her original question about life after death. It had been so long, he’d probably forgotten s
he’d asked.
Jimmy looked at her sadly. “I must sound crazy to you.”
“Well no, not exactly. It’s just… never mind.”
“Something bothering you? Why is it that you’re out here alone on Thanksgiving, anyhow?”
“Because…” Madeline started, but she didn’t know what to say. Because she was avoiding going to visit a woman who’d become someone unrecognizable? Because she was trying to get inspiration to finish a story about a hungry ghost consuming everything she once loved and was worried it was coming true? Because she was indecisive and looking for the world to give her the answers—but all she’d managed to do was find her way to a pet store where she’d been forced to listen to a story that didn’t make any sense?
Mickey sniffed at Madeline’s leg and Jimmy’s eyes followed the cat.
“You look like you could use a friend. She can sense that.”
Madeline reached down to Mickey but as she brought her hand close to the kitten’s face, Mickey pivoted and raced back to Jimmy. It was irrational, but Madeline felt hurt and experienced a flash of anger. What was it about this kitten? Every time Madeline tried to pet it, it seemed interested and then shied away. Who did that remind her of?
“Could you do your thing with Mickey and get information about her past?” Madeline asked. She couldn’t believe herself for asking something so ridiculous—clearly the wine was getting to her head.
Jimmy chuckled. “Mickey? I’ve had her since she was born, and she’s only a few months old, so I doubt it…” Jimmy trailed off, but then seeing Madeline’s expression, appeared to change his mind. “But why not, as a little experiment? I can try it and see what I can pick up on. Heck, it could be interesting.”