Kitten

Chapter 21

Sunlight spilled over my body. My mouth tasted like bad oranges.

I was alone in Lou’s bed, which I recognized from the amber smell of her sheets.

I was also wearing Lou’s clothes, an oversized Kate Bush T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. Snippets of memory from last night came to mind.

Lou lifting my arms, barking “Up! Up!” which made me feel like a show dog flunking a career-defining performance.

Lou wiping my eyes with toilet paper, saying, “For God’s sake, Katie, you didn’t kill his cat.

” Shoving Advil into my mouth, washing it down with tap water.

My stomach churned when I saw that I had three missed calls and a flurry of text messages from James. He picked up immediately.

“Where the hell are you?”

“At Lou’s,” I said, alarmed by his alarm. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew that.”

“I knew you were seeing her, not spending the night. I stayed up waiting for you—I thought something bad happened.”

“No, God.” I raked my scalp. “I’m fine. We just hung out in her place all night. I’m really sorry I didn’t text.”

“You were at Lou’s,” James said. “I honestly don’t even know what to say right now.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied feebly.

James sighed. “I want to be patient with you, because I know you’re probably not as okay as you’re pretending to be. But this is really fucking awful of you, to be honest. If I’d killed your cat, I’d never treat you like this.”

“So you do blame me.”

Nothing.

“I don’t mind, James,” I said. “I would rather you say it than pretend.”

“Look, it’s not about blame,” James finally said. “I just needed you last night, and you weren’t there.”

After we ended the call, I studied Lou’s wall for five minutes, categorizing the discordant items. Most of them I recognized from when we lived together: the Rothko print, postcards from the Guggenheim in Venice, a Louis Vuitton purse, a beaded clutch.

Birthday cards from various friends, a note of congratulations I wrote to her when she got her job.

Then I put my vomit-stained clothes into a plastic bag and left.

Descending the stairs, I crossed my fingers in the hopes that something big and out of nowhere would happen, yanking me out of the trajectory of my morning.

But nothing did. The building door opened to crisp fall weather.

Chained to a post outside the liquor store, a pit bull strained to reach a pile of abandoned french fries, while on the other side of the street, a man in a bedazzled baseball cap belted “Valerie” and gave me the finger.

—

The door to James’s apartment stood slightly open, as if he knew I’d forgotten my keys. He’d cleaned. Our shoes sat in an army line with their noses to the wall.

James’s eyes were sunken. A small layer of stubble shadowed his jaw. “Hey,” he said.

“Hi.” I took a tentative step to close the gap between us. He cleared his throat. “It’s okay,” he said at the same time that I said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, honestly. I was just worried about where you were.”

“No, it’s not.”

James glanced at me. I continued. “For once can you let yourself blame me for longer than five seconds?”

“Don’t, please. I’m not in the mood.”

“In the mood for what?”

“For this.” He began to pace around the living room. “Managing this, you. Let’s just move on. I need to do some work.”

“Work?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “Work. I have to work. It might be a foreign concept to you, but things don’t just stop when bad things happen. You can’t just disregard everything else in your life.”

He paused. I let him continue. “Do you think I want to be this kind of person? Do you think I can’t see how ridiculous it is, to still care about work, when I’ve just had to tell my mother, who trusted me, what’s happened, and when you, my girlfriend, are either disappearing off to nowhere or just standing here, saying nothing and looking haunted, as if she was yours?

Do you think I don’t realize how, if I hadn’t gone to work in the first place, Silver would still be alive? ”

He exhaled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay.”

“I don’t want to be this person,” he said. “I don’t enjoy it.”

“You deserve to feel upset.”

James’s eyes flashed. “If I hadn’t gone back to the city, she would still be here.”

“Yes,” I said. “Probably.”

“If you had only listened to me when I told you to lock the door.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “All of this was so fucking preventable.”

“I don’t think that’s true. You couldn’t have known what I’d do.”

James sat on the couch, blinking at the ceiling.

I waited for him to look at me, and when he didn’t, I looked up, too, the ceiling smooth save for a small crack on the right edge above the window.

Just over half a year ago, I did not know who James was.

I had not seen the sea or met his mother.

The only cracks I recognized were the ones on my own ceiling.

“I don’t understand you,” James said. “I thought I did, but I don’t.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But I didn’t let you.”

And it was with clearheaded relief that I took his hand, the hand I reached for when I could not reach my mother’s, the hand I guided around my life before either of us understood the error, our shared error, of assuming it was anything but a hand.

It could hold mine tight, it could even lead me somewhere new, somewhere lovely, but it could not change my life. No, it was only a hand.

James walked to his desk and opened his laptop. The screen glowed white, illuminating his face like he’d just opened the blinds to a brilliant new day.

—

The days passed. James spent most of them at work.

In the evenings, we ate takeout in silence while watching TV.

Part of me missed his homemade meals from Holme, the way I used to lie with Silver while James sat at our feet, flipping through cookbooks and bookmarking the pages.

But mostly the idea of James scooping food onto my plate felt like a piece of life that belonged on the other side of the highway.

The physical desire we shared upon returning from Holme lingered in my body, tempered by our growing distance.

I wanted to kiss his neck, to smell the roots of his hair, but James kept to his side of the bed, and I became newly self-conscious.

I remembered the way I kissed him without thinking or warning at the Frick. What had been wrong with me back then?

My mother kept sending me money. Small amounts, around fifteen to twenty-five dollars at a time, but in such frequent dispatches I could be sure she wanted me to think of her.

I was grateful, but unsure how to respond.

I could tuck my tail and say thank you, but it was easier to let our gentle and mutually maintained silence grow instead of ruining it with something as insecure as gratitude.

On Wednesday evening, while James was showering, his phone buzzed with a call from his mother. I let it go to voicemail. Then I swiped up. His password was the last four digits of his Holme zip code. My heart jumped. I couldn’t stop myself—I opened their messages.

Today 6:07 pm

Mom: Soo many leftovers from Marta’s. I can drop off tmrw

James: Hero! Yes please

Mom: How are u doing?

James: I’m ok

Arthur’s back. They’re not sure if they want to keep me on the team

Idk it’s a bit stressful

Don’t worry

Mom: Don’t stress. U’ll be fine

How’s Katie?

James: She’s fine

Mom: But how are u two doing?

Btw Sara & Andrew’s anniv party next weekend. Don’t forget a gift

James: Will shop this weekend

Tuesday Oct 3 08:00 pm

Mom: Found this pic of u and Silver. 10 years ago <3

James: My haircut hahaha

Mom: She adored u.

10:11 pm

James: How are you mom? How’s dad

Mom: We’re good. Watching that new movie on netflix

U would like it

It’s clever

James: Does dad like it?

Mom: He says “not bad”

James: He says everything’s not bad

Mom: He says this one is “really not bad”

James: Haha ok I’ll give it a try

Monday Oct 2 11:02 am

Mom: Isabelle sent flowers. So sweet

She texted me she’s thinking of moving back to the city?

James: Yeah she told me

Mom: We should get lunch

James: Don’t know if she actually will though

She’s always saying she will

Mom: Don’t be such a pessimist!

6:08 pm

James: I’m not a pessimist

Sunday Oct 1 2:32 pm

James: Thanks for coming mom

I love you

I flung the phone to the foot of the bed, certain that if I didn’t stop now, I would read on forever.

A faint thrill sat coiled in my chest. It astonished me that James and his mother could message so frequently and casually about mundane administrative details, but also about their worries, their feelings, the people animating both their lives.

I had the urge to message my mother, too, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

The big things seemed small when typed out, and the small things far too big.

—

On Friday night, James returned from the office smelling of beer.

He put down his backpack and poured himself a glass of water from the tap while quietly I ate my microwavable mac and cheese.

His portion sat untouched across from me.

I imagined Silver hunched over at the end of the table, lapping fervently with drops of cheese hanging from her whiskers. It made me smile.

James set down his glass with a thump. Then he leaned in and kissed me, the pressure firm, his breath ripe and yeasty. I kissed him back, my stomach hollowing with desire. We continued until my breath hitched and James pulled away. “You still like me,” he said with a faint smile.

“Yes.” I hesitated. “Do you still like me?”

“Yes.”

“But?”

“Things have changed, right?”

“What do you mean?” I watched his eyes move from my face to my mouth, down my body, to the space between our feet. Then he pulled me up so I was standing, our toes pointing at each other.

“For one, you don’t want to live with me anymore.”

He registered my surprise, let go of my hands.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” I said.

“It’s fine,” James said. “And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. It really is fine.”

“I should’ve said no when you first brought it up in Holme. I didn’t think that was an option.”

“I could tell, you know. Not then, I couldn’t, but the day after we got back.”

“How?” Was I a fool to be surprised?

“You haven’t touched that stuffed shark once.”

My throat tightened. James looked at me with a serious but not unhappy expression. I said, “I think you’re right.”

“I know I am.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“I asked myself this. I wanted to be. But I don’t think I have the right.”

I started to protest, but he continued. “No, let me explain, please. We’ve both been wrong. I don’t think I ever tried to understand what you really needed. I just wanted to make you happy.”

“It’s not about that,” I said. “You do make me happy. But I’ve made you miserable. I don’t know how…I actually don’t know how to care for people.” I paused. “I don’t think I can.”

“You can,” he said. “You start with yourself.”

Next to his water glass, a fly buzzed, then disappeared.

I wondered where flies went when you couldn’t see them.

If it was possible they simply vanished for a few seconds, to a waiting room full of other flies, safe and untouchable.

Silver, I believed, would know where it went.

She would catch it in one swipe and put it in her mouth.

“I think I understand that,” I said. “I think that’s why we can’t live together. I don’t even know if I have a real self right now. I’m sorry.”

James’s gaze shifted, maybe also following the fly as I was trying to. There it was—right in front of me, impossible to miss. Our eyes locked. “It’s okay,” he said.

I took a breath, swallowed. Something twitched in my throat. I made a choice.

“I didn’t really love you when I first said it,” I said. “I loved being with you. But I love you now, I do. And that’s why I think I need to be on my own. Can you forgive me for that?

Without any hesitation, James said, “I already have.”

I wished I could return to the bright and lonely halls of my childhood and tell the girl inside them not to worry.

Somebody eventually would forgive her for leaving.

Life would come for her, love would hunt her down, and even though the future would be unfamiliar it would not be unkind.

What was it about the memory of childhood that made it seem gentler, more bearable, somehow, when the truth was that it was often withholding and oppressive, a house of locked doors?

Still, leaving it behind was a loss, one endured by everybody.

I thought of little James in Isabelle’s empty mansion, remembering again how to breathe.

Finding a lost cat on the beach and nursing her to life.

Fantasy of a life without illness, errorless and absolute.

Reality of the one you had, the only one you had, the one you would continue to have until you died.