by Jessie Haas
It was known to other people. He didn’t care. That made it real and made caution imperative. It would be awhile before he came back, but he would come.
He went out, closed the door, and walked up through the weeds to the road.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was a beautiful morning. The sun was just up, the sky a deep and brilliant blue. Snow sparkled in little rainbow prisms, cascaded off wind-stirred branches, drifted glittering in the air. The brook ran black beside the road, and snow mounded the rocks and banks, beautiful and soft. Blue jays flashed and screamed in the trees. Crows cawed heavily; chickadees chickadeed and hopped and pecked. Despite his encumbrances and his boots, Phillip felt light. Very light—starving. And light-hearted, and empty-headed.
In the cornfield sun gleamed on the golden stubble, which just showed above the snow, and on the weeds in the margins and the silver gray fence posts. An apple tree caught his eye. It stood at the edge of the field, leafless but covered with beautiful golden apples, like a tree from a fairy tale.
In the farmyard he heard milking machines and a radio behind the steamy barn windows. The woman, bundled up and wearing a blue ski hat, came to the door as he was passing. “Hi!” called Phillip, and waved. Her eyes were wide and amazed, but she waved back automatically.
His wave and voice had disturbed the kittens. First one head and then the other popped out the opening of his coat. He looked down, and they looked up, as wide-eyed and amazed as the woman at the barn door.
“Mewp!”
“It’s okay,” he said, putting up his hands to catch them.
But the kittens had never seen a wide white world like this. One buried its head in Phillip’s coat again. The other held his gaze desperately and cried. Phillip stroked the stripes between its ears with one finger, and it stayed out looking at him till he reached the road and the first car passed.
The road had been plowed and well driven on. It sparkled black and wet in the sunshine, and the cars sent up little splashes as they passed. Once an empty school bus rattled by. Phillip looked at the sun and tried to estimate what time it was. Past schooltime surely. Long past breakfast.
The kittens began to squirm, still unwilling to look at the world but no longer comfortable. Phillip felt their legs pushing his stomach, one climbing on the other’s head. Cries, plaintive or annoyed, came from under his coat. He was glad to see the fringes of settlement at last. Soon he was at the corner of his own street and, with only slight hesitation, turning.
The driveway was already shoveled—scraped bare, actually, down to the dark wet pavement—and the mailbox was cleared. The flag was up, but his mother had left the cap of snow on top. Phillip could see where her fingers had brushed it, putting up the flag. The edges of the snow were starting to trickle and drip in the sunshine.
As he got closer, he could smell coffee and apples and spice. He hoisted a slipping kitten, climbed the steps.
He could see his father at the table, a newspaper spread open to the real estate section. His mother was pouring herself a cup of coffee. As Phillip clicked the latch of the storm door, she looked up and gave a start that slopped coffee across the counter. His father looked, too, and both seemed to freeze in disbelief and incomprehension. Phillip pushed open the door and came inside.
“Phillip,” his mother said. Slowly she set her cup down on the counter, reached for a towel, and dried her hand. “Phillip, what … it’s nine-thirty. Why aren’t you in school?”
Phillip stopped on the mat, so snow couldn’t melt from his boots onto the clean floor. He couldn’t think what to do next, not even which boot to take off first, or how to do it, or whether instead to unbutton his jacket, let alone what to say and which parent to address. His mother, having asked her question from pure reflex, was staring at him wide-eyed, openmouthed. His father was more composed, more alert and formidable. Of course, he was better prepared, having some slight inkling of strange comings and goings. Phillip saw him recognize the ax and hatchet.
Abruptly the frozen moment cracked. A kitten lost hold of Phillip’s sweater and dropped halfway down his body before it caught again, dangling there with all but its head showing. The other kitten popped out the top of his jacket, looked around, and wailed.
His mother’s eyes bulged, his father started and smiled, and there was a thump down the hall in one of the bedrooms. Almost before the sound had registered on their ears Thea was among them, arched and bristling, yellow eyes ablaze. She stalked toward Phillip and sniffed the lashing tail of the lower kitten, swelled even larger, drawing in a breath that seemed as if it would never end, and hissed.
Both kittens shot upward, and their claws found flesh. Phillip yelped, and Thea lowered her tail and ran.
“Oh, my goodness,” his mother said faintly, drew in a breath, and asked, with a great deal more firmness, “Phillip, what on earth is going on?”
Phillip detached a kitten from his shoulder, with a sound like Velcro, and handed it to her. The other was crawling around somewhere near his armpit. He reached in to find it. “I … had them hidden. Out in the woods. They were going to be put to sleep.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, why couldn’t you bring them home?”
It was a stunning question. Why not? He knew there was a reason: a feeling that he couldn’t make any demands or add extra complications, a feeling that this house had to be kept bare and sterile, like a hospital. But that feeling was dissolving so fast that he could hardly grab hold of it and name it to himself.
“Here,” his father said, reaching up for the kitten she held. The one Phillip had was the one that looked away from you, and this one looked straight into his father’s eyes. Phillip’s father looked back, with the expression of delight and discovery that Phillip always remembered. It seemed very young, almost as young as the kitten’s own wide gaze. Tenderly, with the hand that bore the broad wedding ring, Carl Johnson cupped the kitten against his chest.
“How long have you had them?” his mother was asking.
“About a week.” The one he held squirmed and cried, and he had to put it down. At the corner of the hallway he saw Thea’s long white whiskers, pointing intently.
“Where have you been keeping them? How did you feed them?” And here it came. “Have you been skipping school to do this?”
“I … cut a few classes.”
“You cut a few classes! How many classes?”
“Um … quite a few.”
“Phillip Johnson, for goodness’ sake! Does the school know about this? Why hasn’t anyone called me?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. He wanted to forget the school; he wanted it to forget him. And he wanted that piece of apple pie warming in the toaster oven and filling the kitchen with its aroma. Then he wanted another, and after that, a shower, and his warm bed.…
“Well, what should I do?” his mother asked as Phillip began to pry off his wet boots and divest himself of equipment. “Should I call somebody? Are you going to do it again? Can I trust you, or do I have to take you to school every day and pick you up? I never dreamed—oh, my goodness gracious, look at that pot!”
Meanwhile, the independent kitten was stalking across the linoleum, shoulders ominously high and tail like a bottle brush. It sniffed Thea’s dish and backed away, catching her scent.
Breathing hard and momentarily stumped for words, his mother reached for her coffee. Phillip could hear the kitten in his father’s hands start to purr.
The one on the floor neared the table. It saw the oxygen cord, stopped, stared, and commenced a wary, circling advance. Phillip saw his father’s free hand slowly reach down. Suddenly he tweaked the cord.
Phzzzt! The kitten exploded, Thea growled and ran, and Phillip’s father burst out laughing.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the pub
lisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The quotation on page 5 is from The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkein. Copyright © 1954, 1965 by J. R. R. Tolkien. Copyright © renewed by Christopher R. Tolkien, Michael H. R. Tolkien, John F. R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M. A. R. Tolkien. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company and George Allen & Unwin, now Unwin Hyman of HarperCollins Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1992 by Jessie Haas
Cover design by Jessie Hayes
ISBN: 978-1-4976-6254-4
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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