Chapter 30 #2
Ruthie’s chirp interrupts Alex’s speech. I glance down and see that she’s finally come out from under the bed and is staring up at Alex with wide eyes.
I can’t decide if I’ve been saved by the bell or if I want to shove the bell back under the bed and demand that Alex continue.
Meow.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m elated to see Ruthie out and about.
But also, Alex was confessing his love to me, again, and even though I’m torn on how to respond, even though I’m leaning toward tearfully telling him that we still can’t be together despite the fact that I want to, a love confession is a love confession, and it deserves to happen free of interruption.
“You were saying?” I prompt him.
Alex stares at the ball of fluff at my feet as if looking at a ghost. I wait for the inevitable judgment. You have two cats in your dorm room? I imagine he’ll exclaim, his confession forgotten.
Instead, once he finally seems to pull himself together, he breathlessly asks, “Is that Ruthie?”
“It is,” I say slowly, confused. “How do you know that? You never met Ruthie.”
He chuckles, but the sound is a short staccato, shock still written all over his face.
“Oh, I know Ruthie. I used to have several deep, permanent scars from Ruthie.”
Not while I knew him, he didn’t—
Oh.
“Did Ellie adopt Ruthie after I died? Is that how you met her?”
I’m a bit emotional at the thought, because I truly believed that I had left her to a fate of living at an animal rescue for the rest of her days. At the very best, I thought my parents might have grudgingly taken her in, but they’ve never been pet people, and Ruthie can be a lot.
“Ellie didn’t adopt her. I did.”
He crouches down and starts scratching her chin. And she lets him.
Meow. And now she’s pushing her head up into his hand and purring. What the hell is going on? If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that she remembers him.
Hell, do I know any better?
Does she remember him?
“I spent seven years with this little hellion. I’m sure Ellie would’ve taken her, but Cat’s allergic…”
It takes me a moment to register what he said. Even though I’m still confused about how I feel about Alex, and even though I still have doubts about our potential to make it as an actual romantic couple, all at once, I’m overcome with emotion.
“You adopted my cat?” I clarify a little breathlessly, then I bend down, pick up a purring Ruthie, and cuddle her close to me.
I stare at her with suddenly watery eyes.
And, oh no, here comes my cat voice—unintentionally, of course, but I’m too overwhelmed to have the decency to feel embarrassed by it.
“Were you a little billionaire cat, Ruthie? Good for you, girl.”
Gratitude. That’s what this overwhelming emotion is, I realize. I’m grateful that Alex was able to give Ruthie a good home after I failed her.
“There is no way that’s Ruthie,” Alex declares, and I look up to see him scrutinizing her.
“How dare you accuse me of not knowing my cat. Ruthie was dropped off at the West Los Angeles Animal Shelter in 2012. This cat has all the same features and was dropped off on New Year’s Eve 2012. Ergo, it’s Ruthie.”
“So the timing lines up. One problem: Ruthie is a monster, and this kitten is sweet and adorable—and she’s letting you hold her.”
I frown and point out, “Ruthie always let me hold her.” At his disbelieving look, I roll my eyes and continue.
“Okay, let me prove it. Look at her little cream-colored chin. Just like Ruthie’s.
And this orange patch on the back of her neck?
The black line down her spine leading to the floofiest mostly black tail—”
“Did you just say floofiest?”
“And look—her eyes.”
I hold her out right in front of his face so that they’re staring each other in the eyes. She leans forward and licks his nose, just once.
“It’s really Ruthie?”
“It’s really Ruthie.” Only then do I catch the glimmer in his eyes. I would chalk it up to a trick of the light, only the glimmer gets bigger and bigger until it rolls down his cheek.
“Are you crying?”
I set Ruthie on the floor, unsure how to proceed. Penguin runs over and rubs his head against hers before looking up at me and letting out a silent meow as if he, too, is baffled.
Alex wipes his cheeks with the backs of his hands, shaking his head.
For a moment I wonder if he’s about to deny he’s crying, but instead he says, “You don’t know.
You weren’t there. I know—I know that she was your cat.
But she was also my cat. And then she was gone, and you were gone, and you’d been gone, but…
it was so sudden. I was divorced, and Ruthie was all I had, and she was gone, and now she’s here.
But it’s been so long since I saw her, I didn’t even think—”
He stops talking, wipes his eyes again, and bends down to pet Ruthie. I think that the reason why he’s so pointedly looking down is so I won’t see him crying.
I was wrong. It isn’t gratitude I’m feeling. It’s love. Love for the man in front of me. The realization comes so suddenly, it almost knocks the wind out of me. I knew I loved him, of course, but until now, I regretted it. Guiltily, I realize I didn’t think he deserved my love.
I thought him full of artifice, but there’s nothing artificial in the sight in front of me.
Alex loves Ruthie. He loved Ruthie, before. I don’t know why it’s so easy for me to accept that as fact, but once I do, I wonder if maybe I should accept his declarations of love for me as facts too.
“Okay. We can try.”
“What?” he asks, distracted. He doesn’t look up at me; he’s too focused on Ruthie, which would annoy me if it weren’t so endearing.
A little louder, I repeat, “I said—we can try. Dating. Being together. Again, I mean, but with no lies between us this time.”
Slowly, Alex stands to his full height. I see the suspicion in his still-watery eyes and do my best to maintain an innocent expression.
“Because of Ruthie?”
“Because of Ruthie,” I confirm.
“Are you going to change your mind once the emotion of this moment wears off?”
“I don’t think so. I’m sorry it took seeing you with Ruthie for me to believe it, but I know you love me.
And it would be dumb of me to throw that away because of something you did”— I do the math in my head.
He died at fifty-eight, he said, and we hooked up at Ellie’s wedding when we were twenty-five—“thirty-three years ago. That’s my entire life, you know.
I’d hate for someone to judge me based on something dumb I did as a baby. ”
I smile cheekily, and he laughs. I take a deep breath and decide to be a little braver.
“Also, there’s the fact that I’m in love with you too. I’m used to thinking only with my head—that’s why I said we couldn’t be together even though we wanted to. Maybe it’s time I start thinking with my heart.”
“And your heart is telling you to be with me.”
“My heart is telling me to be with you.”
“Because you love me.”
“Because I love you.”
“Because of Ruthie.”
His delivery is deadpan, but there’s a smile on his face that’s growing wider by the second. Before I know it, I’m smiling back, and we stand there just smiling at each other.
“Not just because of Ruthie… I realized I loved you weeks ago. Before the party. But you adopting my cat after I died certainly doesn’t hurt your case.”
Alex laughs again, a short, surprised, maybe even amazed sound. And then I’m engulfed in his arms as he peppers kisses all over my face. Then we’re both laughing, and the thought passes through my mind: If I could spend the rest of my life laughing with Alex, it would be a second life well spent.