“Morning, Dad,” she said brightly, accepting the hug that he brought with him into the kitchen.
“How’s Cara this fine day?”
“Already off to school and bubbling over with excitement that vacation is almost here.”
“Ah, Christmas break. My favorite time of year,” William said.
“She has you and mom lined up for all sorts of fun things.”
“I’m going to need a vacation from this vacation, that’s for sure. Makes me feel young while she’s around, and then the next day I feel every bit of my age and then some.”
“You’re a young grandfather, Dad.”
“Tell that to these bones,” he chuckled.
“I can put a kibosh on the activities,” she offered.
“Nope. We have important things to do. She wants me to go hunting for hedgehogs.”
“What?” Catherine blurted.
“She’s pretty sure they live around here somewhere.”
“Hedgehogs?” Catherine turned to Fynn, figuring this must be his doing, telling tall tales. Or maybe there really were such things roaming the streets of Nekoyah. Other than Sonic, whom Lyle had introduced her to when she and Fynn babysat their nephews, she’d never seen one. And the cartoon version was hardly helpful in this case.
Fynn shrugged. “Things could be worse, she could be out smoking and drinking. I think hunting is preferable to other hobbies she could take up.”
“You two can have each other.” She waved dismissively at her father and husband. “I have appointments to keep.”
“What did we do?” William Hemmings asked, all innocence.
She rolled her eyes. “Mom and I are going out. So we’re leaving you two to your own devices.”
“I think we can manage,” Fynn said.
“Of course you can. Oh, and we won’t be back for lunch.”
“Time to hit that diner again.” Her father rubbed his belly.
Catherine gave Fynn a look that said please, not the diner, hoping he understood, but at the same time figuring there was no way that he did. He didn’t get the subtleties of her precarious relationship with Mel.
-41-
Catherine sat in the exam room, waiting for the doctor. She’d made it through the last weigh-in and wouldn’t have to see Nurse Ratched again, possibly ever. She wouldn’t miss that woman. At. All.
Her mother had opted to stay outside in the waiting room instead of accompanying her into the back, standoffish about the birth process and seemingly anything leading to it. Catherine had foolishly been concerned about gently breaking the news that she only wanted Fynn in the delivery room with her, but when she’d told her, Elizabeth Hemmings had waved it off like it needn’t be said because she had no intention of being there. No way. No how. Even though she was getting her way, Catherine was taken aback and, honestly, hardly soothed by Fynn’s reasoning that her mother’s generation had come through the labor and delivery realm when even husbands didn’t join them for the birth, let alone grandparents and sisters and friends and the guy off the street who sold sandwiches out of the back of his truck in nice weather.
She twiddled her thumbs, adjusted the gap in her gown to seal off the draft that was slipping down her cleavage. Those she would miss after all was said and done. Not that her breasts had been small before, but they were never this perky. Just enough added volume to make them defy gravity with pride. Although she guessed she had another year with them if she was able to make it nursing that long, barring all the obstacles between here and there. Like the horror stories about leaking and spraying and tenderness that picked off the weak before they even got started.
Her phone buzzed from across the room and she slid off the exam table to answer it, certain it was Fynn checking in.
The message was as expected: How was your appointment?
But it was from Georgia. Catherine could have been knocked over with a feather. How did she know? Was she tracking her movements on some surveillance app, or did Fynn tell her, or—did it even matter?
Catherine texted back: Still here.
Georgia: Nurse still on your case?
Catherine: LOL (not that she had, but she did crack a smile)
Georgia: Let me know how it goes.
Catherine: Sure.
A dry and superficial conversation when you looked at the words; yet Catherine was still teary, the screen blurring before her. She had begun to think that Georgia would never talk to her again, and she was stubborn enough to return the favor. Not even her mother’s words had been able to break through her crusty self-righteousness. Now she felt even worse, not being the one to cave on their ridiculous silence stalemate. Maybe she should go the extra mile, add something more meaningful like a miss you or a great to hear from you or a talk soon or—
The phone chirped, her default ringtone for anyone who was no one in particular, and she answered without thinking.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Trager?”
“Yes,” Cautious, recognizing the voice but not immediately who it belonged to.
“Hi, yes, I’m calling about Cara.”
“Oh my God, is everything alright? Is she—”
“She’s just fine.”
Catherine heaved a calming breath, only to feel her heartbeat kick up a notch all over again as she realized it was Cara’s teacher, Mrs. Karnes, who never had good news to report.
“Well, Mrs. Trager, we’re concerned—”
“I thought you said she’s fine.” And who is the rest of this ‘we’? Sophie Watts? The mouse in your pocket?
“Yes, of course she is. Nothing happened and I don’t want to alarm you; I’m just touching base.”
“About?” I swear if you tell me the other parents staged a coupe and overthrew Sophie Watts, I still won’t step in and take over as room mom again. Not after what you did.
“Cara has been telling the other students that she has a talking cat,” Mrs. Karnes said, tossing it out like an accusation.
“A talking cat?” The question, stilted, like it was both a ridiculous supposition and also so bizarre that it didn’t seem possible it was being made up.
“Yes.” There were several beats of silence on the other end, space Catherine wasn’t willing to take although Mrs. Karnes was relinquishing it, so the teacher continued, “It seems that she listens to whatever her cat says and does whatever her cat tells her to do.”
“But she doesn’t even have a cat—we don’t have a cat.”
Mrs. Karnes didn’t engage the pronouncement, as if it was neither here nor there. A talking real cat or a talking imaginary cat, either way, just as crazy. “We wonder if maybe it would be best—”
There was that damn we again.
“—if she talked to someone.”
Other than her cat. That’s what Mrs. Karnes meant, though she pussyfooted around it.
“Our counseling department at the school is available for any child who needs a little extra… attention. They could refer you to a—”
Psychiatrist? Psych ward? Catherine’s fears filled in the blank, drowning out Mrs. Karnes’s words.
“—a strong imagination is nothing to squelch, but considering what Cara has gone through over the last months, this could be a sign of something deeper, therefore I thought it imperative to share with you.”
A talking cat? Telling her what to do? Don’t tell me it’s the beginnings of Schizophrenia.
Catherine boosted herself back up on the cold table, the hygienic paper crinkling underneath her, staring at her phone, stunned. She didn’t know what to think or how to feel. People always said that having an imaginary friend was perfectly inbounds of normal. So if that was the case then—
“Mrs. Trager, how are we doing today?” Doctor Sombrarian asked as he walked in the room, startling her and making her juggle and almost drop her phone. Obviously he hadn’t gotten the latest memo that she didn’t want to deal with anymore we’s today.
She looked around for someplace to put her
phone now that the doctor and his tailing nurse were in the room with her. Alas, no pockets in her gown and she wasn’t a kangaroo. All she had was socks on her cold feet.
“I’ll take that,” the nurse offered, placing it onto her pile of clothes that she’d messily folded and left on the chair in the corner.
“So it seems this is our last meeting until the big day,” the doctor announced as he peered through her chart.
“Yup, seems so.” Catherine held her gown closed around her even though this man had seen everything God gave her many times over.
“Well, I guess we should see how things are progressing then, considering it could feasibly be any day now.”
Any day now she would be mom to an all-consuming baby daughter while she was still struggling as a not-quite-mom to a little girl who now had an imaginary kitty controlling her every movement.
-42-
“So, what now? Any shopping you want to do? Maybe go to an early lunch?” her mother offered from the passenger seat.
“I’m not really hungry.” Not hungry? Catherine Marie? A news flash in and of itself!
“Everything went okay in there?” Elizabeth Hemmings glanced worriedly out the window at the building that housed the doctor’s office that had taken her daughter’s appetite away.
“The usual.”
The appointment had been as ho-hum as she’d expected it to be. Nothing new to report but for the news that Elizabeth Hemmings’ granddaughter had “found” or “rescued” or “adopted” an imaginary talking kitty. Which was weighing on Catherine considering she’d seen enough psychological thrillers to know that the psychopaths in them spent a lot of time either talking to themselves or the people (and possibly cats) in their heads as they went about plotting their murderous ways, and what she didn’t need at all right now was to be raising a serial killer.
“Well, then, I guess that’s it.” Brusque.
“No. Mom. I’m sorry. I just got a call while I was in there and it kind of spun me out,” she admitted.
Her mother chewed on that for a moment. “You know what your father would say to that?”
“What?” Catherine tried to minimize the sigh that erupted with it.
“That’s reason number eighty-two why cell phones are destroying our lives.”
Catherine burst out laughing. The kind of uncontrollable joy that made it a good thing she was still safely parked in a perfect spot, deep in the parking lot, on the end of a row, next to a curb, and well away from other cars with their capriciously swinging doors. She turned and looked at her mother through her bleary eyes and found her laughing right along.
When they finally came back to their senses, Elizabeth glanced at her watch. “You know, we could meet up with the boys at the diner. My guess is they’re probably on their way there right now.”
“I don’t think Fynn was planning to go there.” If he was reading my vibe at all.
“If there is one thing I know about your father, he is going to a diner any chance he gets. He will be there. And I say we go and try to horn in on their lunch and get your father to pay for it.”
Catherine smirked in spite of herself, considering her father’s money was their money was her mother’s money. Her parents had always been completely joined in mind, body, and wallet. There was no differentiation. Which was why she had never considered maintaining separate accounts in her own relationship either. If you couldn’t share bank accounts, how could you share a full life and a bed and all that came with it? She knew that Connor and Lacey kept separate accounts, both contributing fifty-fifty to the household expenses, and flying in the face of everything marriage was to Elizabeth and William Hemmings. Her brother and his wife were creatures of a new kind of marriage. But thankfully Fynn was on Catherine’s same page, and better yet, he was an extremely low-maintenance kind of man whose financial ground was strong and steady, something she had learned, dating later in life like she had, was hard to come by. There was a lot more baggage than simply old girlfriends or cranky ex-wives to deal with in the dating pool these days. There were financial black holes and borderline bankruptcies too. Credit history was right up there with medical history these days. Too bad she wasn’t quite the same shiny apple for him, but it was just a little debt, all current, all on the up-and-up.
“It’ll be nice. Besides, I could go for another one of those Reubens while we’re here,” her mother reasoned.
Catherine groaned. Nice wasn’t really the word for it.
“And afterward, I can take the old man home if you want, and you and Fynn can have the afternoon to yourselves. We’ll be there for Cara when she gets off the bus.”
And don’t forget her cat, since we can’t be too hopeful that she’ll lose it on the way home.
She shook her head to clear it of the newest obstacle to her efforts for a smooth-sailing life. Who was Mrs. Karnes to judge how well-adjusted Cara was, anyway? Catherine was the one who had been with her every moment within the legal limits since her mom died. She would know if the girl had a problem. But there was one problem that she knew of without a doubt. She needed to get her ass shopping so Christmas was taken care of.
“So? What do you think?” her mother prodded.
“I think that I have some shopping to do this afternoon while I can still do it. The doctor says I’m free and clear. No worries that I will be dropping this kid in the middle of the aisle at Target or anything, so I think I need to take advantage of that.
Elizabeth Hemmings winced, “Catherine Marie, that is an awful image.”
“It happens, Mom. I’ve heard about it on the news. Heck, I’ve seen it on YouTube.”
“Now don’t go getting your father started on that YouTube stuff. He doesn’t even fully know what it is, but he’ll tell you all about why he thinks it’s terrible.”
“Ten-four.” Catherine pulled out her phone and tapped away at the screen.
Alarmed. “Don’t pull up a video.” Her hand to her throat.
“I’m just texting Tara,” she assured her.
“I’m glad that you two are back to normal.”
“Normal?” Catherine blurted. “There is no normal with Tara, Mom.”
“Well, she is a friend. Oh, and how is Georgia while we are at it?”
“I have to talk to her later, actually. I tried to catch up in the doctor’s office.” Almost true. No need to share who reached whom first?
“That’s not what put you in such a mood, is it?”
“What? No.” She waved her mother off. “I just hadn’t seen the doctor yet, so I need to tell her all’s well and nothing’s new on the baby front.”
-43-
“Yo, bitch, lookin’, sweet! How much for a couple hours?” Tara whistled out her open car window as she rolled up next to the curb where Catherine was waiting outside the diner. Fynn had already taken her parents home and Catherine was still trying to shake off the looks she’d gotten from Mel at lunch that said, how did such nice, regular, salt-of-the-earth people raise someone like you? … or something like that.
“Very funny,” Catherine growled through her scarf, stepping down off the curb and getting in the passenger side, noting the new-car smell. “So what happened to my car?”
“You mean that old thing you gave me right before it died?”
“Died?” Catherine choked out.
“Yup. Dead. As a doornail. Conked out a few months ago.”
“Oh.” That was all she could say, needing a moment of silence for the car that had gotten her all the way from college graduation to her life with Fynn. The one she had left behind for her friend to unceremoniously junk. She wondered if Tara had even tried to fix it. Wondered why she hadn’t called and offered it up to her. Wondered why it mattered so much when she’d left it behind with Tara because she didn’t need it anymore.
“Is this a mini SUV or something?” Catherine asked, inspecting the space.
“A crossover. Just what I need for hauling stuff around to work on the house. I figure
d if I need a truck I can always borrow yours,” Tara said breezily.
“Oh.” Again, one syllable that allowed her time to swallow some of the sharp opinions she had about everything Tara had just said and all of her recent choices, for that matter—like fixing up a house when she was a city girl who’d always lived in rented spaces without ever doing so much as fixing a squeaky hinge. Oh, and figuring their relationship had what’s-mine-is-yours status.
“So where’re we off to?”
“Well, you know Cara’s list,” Catherine said carefully, a sore spot. “I need to do some shopping.”
“I’m game, where do we go?” Like nothing had ever transpired between them. The joy of Tara.
She took the letter out of her purse, looking it over again. “We need a board game, a Gingermelon elephant, a fryer, a—”
“A friar? Is it Tuck? From Robin Hood? Or will just any old friar do? Is she in some kind of religious phase?”
“A deep fryer.”
“Well that makes more sense—wait, that doesn’t make any more sense. What does a six-year-old want with a deep fryer?”
“The girl likes fries, what can I say?” She also likes invisible cats, by the way, so on the bright side, at least she isn’t asking for a litter box and a scratching post for Christmas.
“Well, it isn’t the thing that’s on every little girl’s wish list, so I can’t imagine there’s been a run on them,” Tara reasoned.
“There’s that,” Catherine agreed.
“So point me in the direction you want to go. This is your town.”
“Like you don’t live here?”
***
“Now that guy loves clams,” Tara said, tugging on Catherine’s coat sleeve.
She looked up from the deep fryer box she was trying to read, wondering who on earth would be eating clams in the middle of Target’s small appliances. Her bewildered and mildly grossed-out gaze took in only two men in the vicinity, neither one currently scarfing down food of any sort, let alone seafood. Which was good since she’d had more than a mild aversion to shelled or gilled creatures since Eve decided against them.
2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3) Page 24