The Tiger in the House

by Jacqueline Sheehan

  Hayley’s stomach tightened. What if Erica tried to make her drink the green goo?

  Erica put her glass on the counter. “Don’t worry; nobody except for me likes to drink this for breakfast. Tom and Sarah call it pond scum.”

  Sarah was Erica’s daughter. She was a big girl and went to high school. She braided Hayley’s hair yesterday.

  “Oh,” said Hayley, unclenching her hands and her belly. “Emma told me never to go into the house with tigers.”

  Erica put the empty glass in the sink. “I think Emma took good care of you. Did you ever see the tigers?”

  Hayley saw pictures of tigers in books. “Yes. They live in the jungle and they can eat you. They have sharp teeth and big claws.”

  Erica rummaged in her red purse and pulled out a phone, looked at it, and put it on the counter.

  “The kindergarten class doesn’t have tigers, only children like you and two teachers. Today, you and I can look at the kindergarten. I’ll show you where your backpack goes and where you’ll sit. Then we’ll come back here and you can play with Louie while I work. Where is Louie? Here, kitty, kitty.”

  Erica made her voice go funny when she called Louie, higher, almost like singing. Hayley heard Louie meowing as he ran into the kitchen, talking and talking as if he were saying, “Coming, I’m coming, right here, coming, coming.”

  Erica crouched down and stroked Louie, starting at his head and finishing at the end of his tail. This was the first time ever that Hayley had a friend who was a cat. Erica had showed her how to pet Louie.

  Erica looked up at Hayley. It wasn’t often that she was higher than grown-ups, where you could see the tops of their heads. Erica’s hair smelled just like the shampoo Erica used last night on Hayley’s hair.

  Louie made everyone happy. She was sure that he was the best cat in the world. He was big. Erica told her that Maine Coon cats were big, with extra-big feet that looked like furry slippers. When Hayley first came to this house, she was afraid of Louie. Now she wanted to be with Louie all the time.

  “Climb on down. You can let your breakfast be. Louie wants to tell us his cat story before we go to kindergarten.”

  Hayley slid off the stool, hanging on the edge of the island until her feet touched the floor. She sat next to Erica and the cat. He rubbed his head into her chest and toppled her into the woman. He pawed her arm but kept his claws tucked inside.

  “He’s trying to tell you that he wants you to pet him. Here, sit in my lap and then Louie can get on your lap. Louie and I will make a Hayley sandwich.” Erica took a pretend bite from the top of Hayley’s head. “Yum! You taste like peaches!”

  Louie was heavy, so heavy that Hayley was sure she couldn’t lift him. But his body was warm and his purring motor vibrated right through the bones in her back.

  “Can Louie come with us to kindergarten?”

  She rubbed Louie’s face along his jawline like Erica showed her. Louie pushed into her hand, wanting more.

  “Cats can’t go to school,” she said. “But he’ll wait for you and be right here when we come home from school.”

  If the tigers came to Erica’s house, Louie would help her. They would run, run as fast as they could.

  CHAPTER 14

  How could Delia possibly think of online dating when her mind was filled with Hayley, when the most important thing was finding guardians for the child before Delia came to the end of her job in twenty-six days? She made this date a week ago, before Ira hooked her back into the new case. But Juniper had said, quite clearly, “Go! In the name of all that is holy and delicious, go!”

  This was Delia’s third coffee date in six months via Match. com. Despite everything, the tragedies at work and starting the J Bird Café, she had to make time for romance. Her sister was right. Even Ira had lectured her, along with Ben. She was thirty-two and beginning to feel a grim reaper of romance clipping along her heels with the sudden realization that she might be single all her days.

  She was certain that J Bird would never remain untethered to a man, since they swarmed around her like bees. When she walked into a room, even men who had their backs to the door swiveled around as if they were on a lazy Susan serving plate, pulled by the fragility of her face, the open, guileless way she stood, moving, doing something delicate with her hands.

  Men thought they knew J Bird, even before they spoke to her. Did her vulnerability translate as sexuality? Delia was sure that it did, and her sister often verified this in their late-night sister talks with more detail than Delia wanted. Given that J Bird could have pulled in any man, she had selected tragically until now. If there was a cinematic type for Bad Boy, she found all of them, complete with sulky, brooding stares, hard-driving sex, and demanding monogamy while they slept with as many women as possible. Collier, her most current ex-boyfriend, had offered a reprieve from high drama. He was in law school part time, taking classes at night while he worked at Whole Foods to pay the bills. To J Bird’s utter astonishment, he had broken up with her over the summer, pleading emotional exhaustion. J Bird could have that effect on people.

  Delia shook her head. Here she was waiting for the coffee date to arrive and all she could think of was her sister. Her plunge into the dating site was a step toward pulling her head out of her little sister’s love life, accepting Juniper as an adult. She did not want to become a character in a nineteenth century British novel who grew old tending to her beautiful sister.

  The Daily Grind was a café on the top of the hill in Portland, out of the trendiest parts of the city that edged along the port on Commercial Street. The coffee was rich and dark, the buzz of noise rose to a pleasant hum, an espresso machine hissed like a steam engine, spoons tinkled against the mugs of foamed milk, plates with scones slid across the copper-edged stone counter. The perfect place for a meet and greet date.

  Or not. Who came up with this idea that you could get to know another person within an hour while hunched nervously across a small, round café table? Rather than a coffee date, perhaps a type of competition would be better, a version of Hunger Games for the dating crowd. Fight against a common enemy. Jousting? A pool tournament, even a card game, something other than what almost everyone dreaded, the interview date.

  But these were the rules when meeting someone for the first time, offered by all the online sites, not only Match.com. You meet in a public place, as if either one of you might be dangerous and the café would offer protection.

  He was five minutes late. If he was ten minutes late, she was going to get up and leave casually, as if she had come here with no other purpose than coffee. Already the feeling of rejection lit up in her belly. And if he was fifteen minutes late, what would that predict for the future? Delia was terrified and fought against her preemptive reaction that she didn’t want to have a second date anyhow.

  “Delia? Are you Delia? I’ve been sitting in the other room, out by the patio, and it occurred to me that I should come in here and check.”

  There was a patio in the back? Why would someone on a first date hide out in the back?

  “Jeremy? Nice to meet you.” Delia held out her hand. She knew they would size each other up in the first ninety seconds, maybe less. He was pale. He hadn’t seen the sun all summer, not even walking to his car. But his hand was moist, and this evoked a human connection for Delia. He was afraid too. Either one of them could reject the other on the spot. Online dating was the new emotional blood sport.

  “Um, should I come to your table?” he said, doing something with his upper body, a loose, almost comic swivel between the back room and the front. “I already ordered a coffee, I can bring it up here.”

  “Sure,” she said. He was going to come to her, and in the minutiae of the first date interview, this was a plus. She tried to slow her breathing.

  Jeremy turned and went back to the rear of the café, where he might have been sitting for who knows how long, to retrieve his drink. This truly was a jousting competition, in a slow, interpersonal give and take. She s
at back in her chair, recoiling when her spine hit the metal of the chair. Did the chairs have to be so unforgiving? She turned to look out the large window near the entrance and froze.

  Tyler. Was she hallucinating? Was dating so stressful for her that her father’s illness had found a portal of entry? No, it really was Tyler. Not so different after thirteen years. He was broader in the chest, taller, if that was possible. Did boys keep growing after they were nineteen, when she had seen him last? Maybe he would keep walking by and she could pretend that she didn’t see him. Surely the light was so brilliant outside that he couldn’t see in. And her date would be back any minute.

  Tyler pushed open the glass and metal door. As if there were no one else in the place, he looked directly at her. The sound of the coffee machines faded away. He tilted his head to one side in surprise. Or like he was seeing a ghost.

  “It’s been a long time, Delia.”

  What could she reply, frozen in place? Could she say something about the muscles along the sides of his eyes, the tiny muscles around his nose, how he looked down for only a second, composing himself, as ripped into the past as she was? It had been a long time, yes, several lifetimes, two dead parents, two daughters surviving the disaster. She was too stunned to speak.

  Three memories of him popped up, a triptych of images. The first was at the foot of her hospital bed after the fire, when Delia was treated for smoke inhalation. He said, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” his eyes red and puffy. He had pulled Delia out of the house, so they told her later, after she forced her way in, using her key to unlock the door of the house, convinced she could save her mother and father, who for years gave every evidence of not being able to save themselves.

  Tyler came from her other life, back when she had to be pulled out of infernos and dragged to the safety of moist green grass, the air filled with smoke, heat, and fire sirens.

  The second image was the funerals. Plural. Two funerals. But all of Portland was there, funneling through the Belmont Funeral Home, squeezing through the point that focused on Delia and J Bird.

  And the third image—

  Jeremy banged into the table, spilling his coffee.

  Tyler looked at Jeremy and made a quick assessment of the situation. He pulled a card out of his wallet, scribbled something, and said, “Please call me. I’m back in town. This is my cell.” He put the card facedown on the table and walked out.

  Jeremy mopped up the spill with a wad of napkins and piled them near the edge of the table. “Who was that? You look sort of stunned.” He sat down.

  Tyler was here. They were going to see each other. There wasn’t anything else she could think about as she sat facing Jeremy across the small table. “I knew him a long time ago. He was my boyfriend.”

  Jeremy, looking even paler in a moment of crystal clarity, said, “We’re not going out with each other, are we?”

  It was such a relief to talk with someone who spoke the truth, who didn’t try to soften, pretend, or modify, that Delia hesitated for a moment before she said, “You’re right. Thank you. I mean, I wasn’t expecting him to ever show up again. I never thought I’d see him again.” She was going to be Jeremy’s bad Match.com date story, the one who changed her mind before she even sat down after seeing an old beau. If she said she was sorry, it could make it worse, make him feel pathetic.

  Her bag hung on the back of the chair, and she reached around to pull it in and stood up. “Jeremy, you just dodged a bullet.” Oh, my God, that was even worse. Now he could add that stupid line to his story and his friends would shake their heads.

  She fluttered a good-bye wave and made for the door, heading in the opposite direction of Tyler.

  The third image of Tyler flooded every part of her. Tyler leaving her when she had needed him so much.

  CHAPTER 15

  Delia left Jeremy to formulate his online dating story. She felt wretched and almost wished she had been the one abandoned on the uncomfortable metal chair. The midafternoon temperatures were warmer than usual, as if autumn had been waylaid. She opened her car door and heat billowed out. She slid in, opened all the windows, and leaned her forehead on the steering wheel.

  Tyler’s business card slid around in her pocket, darting like a fish in the shallows of a river, alive, vibrant, hiding from the sun and predators. Tyler was now thirteen years older, eyes more shadowed by a furrowed brow, hands oddly soft. It was shocking to see his earnest, younger self peeking out. Was she still who she had been when she was nineteen? No, absolutely not. But still, a warm circle pulsed around her belly button, spreading out from an ember core. He had been the exciting new kid in high school, arriving in their senior year.

  Tyler Greene, M.D. He was a physician? He had scratched out a number from a clinic in San Jose, California, and scribbled a new phone number. Why had he returned? The third image of Tyler that popped up was somehow the worst, when she thought she had one thing to hold on to, one person she could count on.

  Hadn’t he and his family moved three thousand miles to the opposite side of the continent that horrible summer, a return to their extended families on the West Coast? The fire that had killed her parents incinerated most of her memories from those months. When she came up for air, after the funerals and the fire investigators who said their conclusion was that the fire was intentionally set, she realized that Tyler and his family were loading up a moving van.

  She had driven back to the charred ruin of their house to collect anything, a melted mercury dime from her mother’s coin jar, a plate, a piece of wood from their staircase. The moving van in front of Tyler’s house sagged under the weight of the Greenes’ household possessions. Tyler, his hands still pink from his burn injuries, a hank of his blond hair charred by the fire, carried his six-year-old sister on his back.

  Delia got out of her car and walked in a daze toward the moving van.

  “What happened? Why are you moving? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Before the fire, they had been new, a year of dating once the scrutiny of high school was behind them. And then there was the world-shattering asteroid of the fire. Delia had not come out of the disaster zone mode of living for two months. The vortex of taking care of Juniper, deciding how to live as orphans, where and how. Basic survival took over. Ben had rushed in, taking care of the horrible details of death, the funerals, standing by their sides ever since.

  Tyler swung his sister to the ground. “Go inside, Becky,” he said. He wiped his hands on his jeans. “I was going to call you. Or write. My father got a job at Boeing. He’s on their cockpit designing team.”

  The filaments holding Delia together disintegrated from exhaustion. She felt foolish. Surely if he had cared about her, even in their fledgling relationship, he would have stayed. He was in college; he didn’t have to follow his family. But who wouldn’t if they had a choice? If she had a family like Tyler’s, parents who made pizza from scratch on Friday nights and held hands when they walked through the neighborhood, she would follow them like a bloodhound.

  Although Ben and his wife wanted them to move to Peaks Island with them, Delia insisted that they stay in Portland. Ben’s mother was ready to sell her house on Montreal Street and move to North Carolina. With Ben’s signature on the mortgage, Delia and Juniper moved in.

  Still, Tyler’s nineteen-year-old self had resurfaced in the coffee shop, and she could think of nothing else. Everything that she had to deal with was so much more important, like a small child without parents, and terrifying, like starting a café business with Juniper. She didn’t want to go home yet. Given her options, the café was the most manageable. She pointed her car toward South Portland.

  * * *

  Delia stopped at their café to see how the remodel was going. She wanted to meet Greg, the new carpenter that Juniper hired. This was the future, the one void of childhood traumas.

  She walked around the café storefront to the back of the lot and saw a man on the peak of the shed roof. He looked familiar, but a lot of peop
le looked vaguely familiar to Delia, and sometimes it was only the daily repetition of passing the same people on the sidewalks. He was older, several decades older than she was able to imagine being, the sun striking through his thin hair. He looked up and waved.

  “I’m Greg,” he said. “J Bird said you were stopping by.” He superglued a porcelain elephant to the cupola of the shed roof in back of their new café. Juniper said it was good luck to have an elephant with a raised trunk.

  Delia waved back, looking up at him.

  “I’m retired, but you wouldn’t know it,” he said, while he straddled the peak of the outbuilding. He pointed to the elephant. “Your sister said this was good luck.” He swung one leg over, as if he were dismounting a horse, and slid his legs to the edge.

  “Hold the ladder steady, would ya?”

  Delia braced one foot against the bottom of the extension ladder and leaned into it with her arms.

  “What are you retired from?” she asked, when he was back on the ground. One of the bakers Juniper worked with had recommended Greg.

  At first, they needed an extra handyman to help with renovations, not a full-out licensed contractor, but someone who would know how to frame out a door on a shed, or how to attach something porcelain to wood that might survive the winter elements in Maine. But somehow, Greg had advanced from handyman to general contractor after J Bird had a meltdown when the plumbers wouldn’t return her calls. Now Greg was the intermediary, sort of the vice president of operations right under the sisters.

  “I did some stuff with IBM,” he said, carefully placing each foot on a ladder rung.

  “What kind of stuff? And you can’t be retired because we’ve hired you.”

  Greg reached firm ground. “I opened up the Asian office back in the day.”

  She should have known. People came to Maine through portals that Delia had given up hoping to understand. A woman from Boston with her PhD in anthropology worked at the homeless shelter. The best plumber around lived with his longtime partner, who was an editor for an online fantasy journal. The white-haired guy with a hunched-over back had been a physicist at Brown. There was no way to predict. Now she learned that Greg, the handyman turned general contractor, had delivered IBM to China.