Chapter 29
I spend nearly a month in the limbo that is returning home for winter break, doing my best not to think about Alex or Kimiko. I wallow for the first few days, but my self-pity is brought to an abrupt halt by—who else?—Sierra.
“If the reason you’re acting so pathetic is that boy you were giggling over at Thanksgiving, I’m going to slap you,” she says apropos of nothing at dinner on Christmas Eve.
“Sierra, must you?” My mom sighs.
“What, you’ve never cried over a boy before?” I snap at Sierra. Although, as far as I know, it’s completely possible she didn’t. She certainly never cried to me.
“Our grandparents didn’t sacrifice everything to move to this country so we could cry over boys.”
“News flash, both abuelas definitely cried over boys.”
Mom barks out a laugh. “My mom certainly did. She used to throw pots and pans at your abuelo, drugstore mascara streaking down her cheeks, and threaten to go back to Mexico.”
“Wait, what?” I exclaim.
“Why?” Sierra asks.
Mom shrugs. “She hated it here. One time, she broke one of her pots throwing it too hard. She wouldn’t talk to my dad until he bought her a new one.”
“That is so toxic,” Sierra mutters, and we all laugh.
A few minutes later, Sierra announces that she’s thinking of going into pediatrics, not surgery.
I think that’s due to my influence, that me taking control of my own life has encouraged her to choose a path she’s passionate about instead of the one she thinks is most impressive or will make our parents proudest—but I’m sure if I ever had the audacity to suggest such a thing, she’d deny it.
The rest of the break passes smoothly.
I see our family doctor and request the antidepressant I was on before I died in my first life. I even ask my mom to make the appointment for me, relishing this last act of dependence.
I talk my mom and sister into getting manicures with me. My cuticles are an absolute wreck, and only the scathing judgment of a nail technician will make me get my shit together.
Things are weirdly good in the Vasquez household. I hope they stay that way.
I text Helen and Madison, and I even agree to get dinner with a couple friends from high school I’d completely forgotten about. The dinner is awkward and stilted and reminds me why we lost touch in the first place, and I know I probably won’t see them again.
I do my best to throw myself back into a normal rhythm once I return to LA, even though I’m not sure what my new normal looks like.
I drive to work at the shelter even though my entire reason for obtaining this job no longer applies. It’s officially 2013, which means I missed intercepting Ruthie when she was brought in. She must have come and left before I started working here.
I knew it was a long shot, but I still want to cry, knowing I missed her.
I just wanted one thing to go right in this second life. Is that too much to ask for?
I’m going to quit today. Put in my two weeks’ notice. It’s an okay job, but what’s the point if there’s no chance of me finding Ruthie?
I’ve been at the front desk for only thirty seconds when Diego walks in, takes one look at me, and says, “Dang, Joey, what the hell happened?”
“I look that bad, huh?”
“You just look like you could use some cheering up.”
“I’m fine.”
Diego takes the seat next to me, shaking his head. “Don’t even try to play me. You’re not a good liar.”
“I think I’m going to put my two weeks in,” I finally admit.
“Damn, okay. That bad?”
We continue our shift as normal. Hours later, I go to clean the cats’ water bowls.
I stop in front of a particularly friendly new kitten, a gray tabby who presses himself right up to the bars of his cage and stares up at me with light-green eyes. He opens his mouth just a bit in what might be a silent meow, and I put my hand through the bars and scratch his head.
I switch out his water and start to walk away, nearly missing the sign of another life inside the cage. But then the light hits in just the right way, and I nearly do a double take.
Ruthie?
The tiny ball of black, gray, and orange fluff hisses at me the moment she notices my attention on her, eyes narrowed with mistrust. My adrenaline is pumping, but I tell myself not to get my hopes up.
It might not be Ruthie, I remind myself.
It’s 2013, and her bio distinctly said she was brought to the shelter in 2012.
But she’s unmistakable, even as a kitten—and she is a kitten. Probably a few months old; she couldn’t possibly weigh more than three or four pounds. A far cry from the eleven-pound girl I once adopted, and yet…
There’s the tabby M on her forehead, a rare presence on a tortoiseshell cat.
And I’m still unsure she even is a tortoiseshell.
I mean, yes, she has black and orange, but she also has some gray and peach patches, all of which make her look more brown than anything unless she’s in direct sunlight.
On multiple occasions, people asked me if she was a Maine coon, and I had to inform them that, according to her bio—and the DNA test I spent way too much money on—she was just a regular domestic longhair.
Then there’s her tiny head—so much tinier than it ever was in the time I knew her—with long, pointed ears, even more disproportionate at this age.
Her fur isn’t too long, and it’s a bit wiry in the way that kitten fur often is, but the tail that’s curled protectively around her body is fluffy and black at the end.
And those eyes. Gold, with a green ring in the center.
This is Ruthie.
It has to be.
“Oh, you met Penguin and Tuna,” Diego says.
I jump at his sudden presence and rush to wipe away the tears welling in my eyes.
“That’s what we’re calling them—one of the volunteers named ’em, and I was like, ‘You sure you don’t want to save the name Penguin for a tuxedo cat? ’ and she was just like, ‘Nope.’ ”
“When did they come in?” I ask, my voice a little breathless as I stare at Ruthie, who is blinking at me with those wide, knowing eyes. And I know it’s ridiculous, but I could swear she recognizes me the same way I recognize her.
Diego thinks her name is Tuna. I want to snort. What kind of name is that?
“New Year’s Eve. They were our last intake of the year,” he says, sidling up to me. Ruthie lets out another long, deep hiss. “Two siblings found in a dumpster by the beach.”
A dumpster?
“Why are they in the same cage?” I ask. Cats are never put in the same cage unless they’re really young kittens from the same litter. These two are too old for that.
“Oh, they’re bonded as all get-out. We tried separating them, but they would not have it. Tuna in particular—she’s a feisty one. She lost her voice the first day here from meowing at the top of her lungs.”
“She lost her voice?” I repeat, outraged on behalf of my cat.
“Yeah, she just yowled and yowled constantly the moment she got here. I don’t think she likes being caged up too much. Then we put him in the cage with her, and she calmed down. Started purring all loud.”
As if she’s imploring me to do something, Ruthie lets out the most pitiful excuse for a meow I’ve ever heard; it’s more of a rasp than anything.
I look up, and my eyes land on Penguin. Penguin, who apparently is such a calming presence that she stops yowling when they’re together.
I feel my eyes tear up at the thought of this sibling who was taken away from her.
What happened to him? At what point were they separated?
Ruthie’s rescue biography didn’t mention Penguin.
“Are they a package deal, then? If someone wants to adopt one of them, they have to adopt the other?” I ask.
“Nah, I don’t think so. We already had someone call to check if Penguin is still available. I mentioned Tuna, but they can only take in one cat.”
Thank God for whoever renamed her Ruthie—I wonder who it was. I guess I’ll never know, because in this reality, that person is me.
I stare at Ruthie, and she stares back, unblinking. Unyielding. If she could talk, I know exactly what she would say right now: She’d tell me to stop staring and leave her alone. She always had an independent streak like that.
Maybe not so independent after all, I think as I focus on Penguin.
He stares at me with wide eyes, and I must not be thinking straight, because it almost feels like he looks worried, his eyes beseeching me to help him. He opens his mouth again in a quiet, barely there meow.
Oh God, am I actually doing this?
I walk into our dorm room, shut the door behind me, place my backpack on the floor, and open it. The moment I do, Madison screeches, “What the hell are those?”
I snuck Ruthie and Penguin across campus and up to my dorm room in my backpack, delicately clutching it to my chest the entire walk, the zipper slightly open to allow them to breathe.
On my arm, inside a large tote bag I keep in my car for groceries, is a small litter box, litter, food and water bowls, and cans of the kitten version of Ruthie’s favorite food.
As far as impulsive, my-prefrontal-cortex-is-not-fully-formed behavior goes, this takes the cake for reminding me that I am a thirty-two-year-old in an eighteen-year-old’s body.
That doesn’t mean I regret it.
“This is Ruthie, and this is Penguin,” I say, nodding at each of them.
I unpack my supplies as the kittens explore the room. Ruthie immediately darts under my bed, which is unsurprising—if she’s anything like she was when I adopted her in 2020, she’ll spend weeks under there getting acclimated before I see her again.
Penguin, on the other hand, starts frolicking around the room, putting his nose into anything and everything. There doesn’t seem to be a shy bone in his body. I sit cross-legged on the floor and watch him explore.
“What are they doing in our dorm room?”
“I adopted them from the shelter.”
“They let you adopt two cats when you live in a dorm?”
“I lied and said I moved into an apartment for my second semester.”
Madison is quiet for several moments. She visibly takes one, two, three deep breaths before she responds. When she does, her words are slow and deliberate.