A Tale of Two Kitties

by Sofie Kelly

“I can’t believe you’re asking me that!” Leo said, echoing what Mary had said earlier, his eyes widening in surprise. “Of course you can’t.”

  Mia made a face at her grandfather but I could see the sparkle in her eyes and I knew she wasn’t really angry. “I’m serious,” she said, frowning at him.

  Leo gave her a guileless look. “So am I.”

  Mia shook her head and laughed. “You and Dad could at least save me one,” she said, passing over the tin. She leaned forward and hugged her grandfather. Then she looked at me. “Kathleen, Grandpa is the reason I roll left. He’s a lefty.”

  “That explains it,” I said.

  Leo looked uncertainly from his granddaughter to me. “Excuse me,” he said. “What does ‘roll left’ mean and why am I being blamed for it?”

  “It’s not a bad thing,” I said with a smile. “I promise. Yesterday Mia and I and someone from the fire station were teaching a group of kids to stop, drop and roll. Everyone rolled to the right, except Mia.”

  She laughed. “I told them you were the one who taught stop, drop and roll to me and I’ve always done it that way.”

  “You’re left-handed,” I said. “That’s why you roll left and that’s what you taught Mia. Most right-handed people will roll to the right.”

  Leo held out his hands. “I’m in here for five minutes and I’ve learned something new.”

  I grinned at him. “I should tell you the source of that information is my mother.”

  He smiled back at me. “I’m sure she’s an unimpeachable source. However, in the interest of full disclosure I should tell you that I’m actually ambidextrous.” He turned to his granddaughter and gave her a hug. “I’ll see you later, kiddo,” he said as Mary rejoined us. “It’s good to see you again, Mary,” he said to her. “It’s been too long. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Good to see you, too, Leo,” Mary said.

  He turned to me. “And it was a pleasure to meet you, Kathleen.”

  “You as well.”

  He raised one hand in good-bye, and with that he left.

  Mia moved behind the circulation desk just as the phone started to ring.

  “I’m going to start shelving,” Mary said.

  I nodded. “I’ll be in my office.”

  I went upstairs and detoured into the staff room long enough to get yet another cup of coffee. In my office I turned on my laptop and then went to stand in front of the window behind my desk. I expected to see Harry Taylor out there, working on the broken gazebo seat.

  Harry was outside at the gazebo but he wasn’t repairing the broken seat. He was having a very heated conversation.

  With Leo Janes.

  chapter 2

  As I watched, Leo said one last thing to Harry and walked away. Harry in turn slammed his hand down hard on the top of the rain barrel that sat next to the gazebo. I couldn’t help wondering what the two men had been arguing about. Harry was easy to get along with and slow to anger, and although I’d just met Leo Janes he seemed like a pleasant man. So what had been going on? I turned away from the window and sat down at my desk.

  I managed to get the staffing schedule finished up through the holidays and to make a start on going over the circulation stats for the various magazines we offered.

  I did a circuit of the building before I left for the night. Mary was at the front desk going over what I was guessing was a reading list of some kind with a couple of teens I didn’t remember ever seeing in the library before. I found Mia shelving books in the young adult section, humming softly to herself.

  “I like your grandfather,” I said.

  “Grandpa’s great, isn’t he?” she said, her face lighting up. “I’m so happy he finally agreed to come here for Thanksgiving. Before, we always went to see him. My dad bugged him and bugged him and then suddenly one day he said yes.”

  I smiled. “I’m not surprised. It’s pretty clear he loves you very much.”

  “I love him, too,” she said. Her expression grew serious then. “He’s not just here because of me. My uncle Victor—great-uncle, really—he’s here, too.” She picked at a bit of loose skin on one side of her thumb.

  She didn’t like the man, I realized. It was written all over her face, in the way her eyebrows knit together and her jaw tightened. “I met him,” I said, “walking back here at lunchtime.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “I didn’t really spend enough time with him to be able to say.” It was the most diplomatic answer I could come up with.

  “You didn’t like him,” Mia said flatly. She crossed her arms over her chest and studied me.

  “Why do you think that?” I asked. I hadn’t really formed an opinion about Victor Janes.

  “You only spent a few minutes with my grandfather but you like him.”

  I nodded. “I do. But sometimes you need to spend more time with a person before you can make up your mind about them. At least I do.”

  “That’s because you’re terminally nice. That’s what Mary says.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “I appreciate Mary’s confidence in the way I try to treat people but I don’t think it’s true.” And I wasn’t sure Mary had meant the comment as a compliment. “Sometimes I’m mean and petty.”

  Mia shook her head. “No, you’re not. You’re nice to people who aren’t nice to anyone else—who aren’t nice to you. I’m not like that.”

  I reached over and straightened three books on the shelf next to my shoulder. “Yes, you are,” I said. “You’re thoughtful and kind and yes, nice.” I held out both hands. “Sorry. You just are.”

  She didn’t smile. She just shook her head again. “I’m not. Because I don’t like my Uncle Victor. In fact I pretty much hate him. That’s not what a nice person would do.”

  I wanted to wrap her in a hug, but I didn’t want to overstep any boundaries.

  Mia pushed a strand of plum-colored hair back off her face. “My uncle Victor had an affair with my dad’s mom. He didn’t care about them. My grandfather says everyone deserves a second chance but I don’t see why I should give Uncle Victor one, even though Grandpa wants me to. You can’t use the word ‘sorry’ like it’s an eraser and it just takes away all the bad stuff you did.” She let out a breath. “You probably don’t get that.”

  “I get it better than you think,” I said. “Someone hurt my dad once very, very much.”

  “Who?” Mia asked. She’d been reaching for the books she’d set on the cart but she put them down again.

  “My mother.”

  Her eyes widened. “I . . . I don’t understand.”

  “When I was a bit younger than you are now my parents got divorced. My mom went to LA just for a couple of months to do a soap and I stayed with my dad in Boston.” I remembered the anger that had seemed to eat a hole in my stomach because my mother had been the one to file for divorce. “Mia, I hated my mother for a while. Half the time I wouldn’t talk to her when she called. Then, one day after an angry conversation with Mom on the phone in which I said she was selfish and actually knocked the phone onto the floor, my father came into my room and told me that my behavior toward my mother was selfish.”

  Mia frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  I swiped a hand over my mouth as if I could somehow go back in time and wipe away all the hateful words I’d said to my mother. “Neither did I, but Dad said that the end of their marriage was between the two of them, that he loved me for caring about him but he didn’t like the way I was treating Mom, who he knew loved me more than anyone or anything in the world.” I still remembered his voice. He hadn’t raised it but I’d had no doubt how he felt about the things I’d said to Mom. There had been a hard edge of anger in his tone although he’d spoken quietly. My father saved the dramatics in his life for the stage and the screen.

  “He said, ‘What’s
between your mother and me is between us. Don’t put it between the two of you.’ Then he called her and they talked for about an hour, I figured about me.” I gave Mia a wry smile. “A few months later they started secretly seeing each other and then suddenly I was going to be a big sister to twins and they were getting married. Again.” I was probably never going to forget my teenage mortification at the undeniable evidence that my parents had been having sex.

  “Are you serious?” Mia asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I didn’t add that it wasn’t the most embarrassing thing my family had ever done, either.

  “Wow,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “Are you going to tell me that I should give Uncle Victor another chance?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m going to tell you that families are messy. As far as anything else goes I know you’ll figure it out.” I put my arm around Mia’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, and headed out to walk home.

  • • •

  After a bowl of turkey-rice soup and crackers—cracked pepper for me and sardine for Owen and Hercules—I grabbed my bag and went to pick up Rebecca for tai chi class. It was Rebecca who had originally invited me to try the class right after I’d moved to town. I sometimes wondered if I would have the circle of friends I had now if I hadn’t said yes to her invitation.

  When Everett and Rebecca had gotten married he had moved into her small house just across my backyard and sold Wisteria Hill to Roma. I’d been happy to know that I wasn’t losing Rebecca as a neighbor. I was certain Owen and Hercules felt the same way. She kept them both in cat treats. In Owen’s case that meant a steady supply of yellow Fred the Funky Chickens. For Herc it was little dishes of whitefish and the occasional bit of salmon. Everett had just hired Oren Kenyon to refinish the floors and the trim in the small farmhouse, so their furniture was in storage and they were living in Everett’s downtown apartment—or as Rebecca laughingly liked to call it, their pied-à-terre.

  Everett’s former bachelor pad was in a two-story Georgian-style brick house that he owned, close to his downtown office in a neighborhood filled with similar, beautifully restored houses. It had crisp white trim and shutters and a wrought-iron fence around a small flower garden between the house and the sidewalk. The garden was one of Rebecca’s touches, put to bed now for the winter.

  I pushed open the wrought-iron gate and went down the narrow walkway between the house and its neighbor to the left of the entrance. At the top of the steps was a set of double six-panel doors painted with a gleaming black finish. They opened into a small entryway with another set of double doors. These were half-frosted glass. To the right were doorbells for the three apartments in the building. To the left were three mailboxes.

  Everett and Rebecca had the entire second floor. One of the smaller main-floor units was kept for business associates of Everett’s to stay in when they came to town and for family when they visited. Until recently the other had been rented to a cousin of Everett’s assistant, Lita.

  As I stepped into the entryway the second set of doors opened and a woman hurried out, pushing past me with a rushed apology. She was gone before I had a chance to say anything. I didn’t recognize the woman. Her head had been down and she’d been pulling up the hood of her navy jacket over a tie-dyed silk scarf as she brushed past me, but I’d caught enough of her face to realize she wasn’t someone I knew and she didn’t look happy. Her lips were pulled together in a tight, thin line and her cheeks were flushed.

  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 g
otten 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.