I heard the front door open and Henry kicking off his boots in the hall. I slipped the carving back into my pocket.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked, coming in the kitchen. He scrubbed his grimy hands in the sink and put his palm to my forehead in his doctor way. He lifted an eyebrow, noticing my damp hair and clothes. “You were supposed to stay in bed.”
“It was a weird day,” I said.
He nodded like he thought so too, then took the roast out of the oven and set it on top of the stove. He carved off two small slices, put them on a plate with carrots and potatoes, and handed the plate to me. He made a bigger plate for himself and sat down. “I’m sorry about those people,” he said.
“I’m sorrier for you.”
“The exotic life of the artist. Now you see why I live where I do.”
I rested my head on my hand and picked at my food. Pot roast and vegetables, my favorite. It all looked delicious, but I couldn’t smell or taste a thing. My head felt like it was stuffed with stones. “I can’t eat.”
Henry set down his knife and fork. “What say I put you to bed?”
He carried me up the stairs, helped me into my PJs, and tucked me in. He brushed back the damp strands of hair stuck to my forehead, then put one hand under my head and held a glass of water so I could drink. Nobody had ever tended to me like that before. And I let him. I let him sit next to me till I drifted off.
I had a troubled, stuffed-up sleep. I woke in the night and slipped the little cat under my pillow, hoping it might sweeten my dreams. But all night long, wild scenes swirled in my stuffy head. The strangeness of the day shredded and churned my memories, then spun them like a tornado in my brain. Mama swept by on a flying hospital bed, and Ray ran past with a rifle after the white deer and the cat, Maud chasing after Ray. The cat was stalking a rat bigger than he was, Fred was telling Bessie and the Padre that he’d known all along that something bad would happen to me, and Lillian and Hargrove Peters were pointing at me, laughing, calling me trailer trash. Sid put one of his special cigarettes to my lips, saying, “Try this, kid, and you won’t care what anybody thinks,” after which Henry appeared in a white coat, shined a bright light in my eyes, and said, “She’s completely crazy, like her mother; there’s nothing I can do.”
I woke up suddenly after that, hardly able to breathe, but when I finally fell back to sleep, I had the oddest dream of all.
This dream wasn’t agitated like the others, but peaceful. And that alone was strange, because it was about my daddy. At least I thought it was him at first. I couldn’t make out his face in the darkness. Like the dream before, in the woods, I just knew it was him. He stood over my bed, watching me sleep. He seemed thoughtful and curious and not in any hurry. Once, he started to reach out, but then he drew his hand back, like he was worried I might wake. He stood over me for the longest time. And the most peculiar thing was how the dream eased my mind and led me, finally, into a deep and restful sleep.
That’s how, in the end, I knew it wasn’t Daddy. It couldn’t have been him. Because whoever it was actually cared.
Once the horrible people left with their mutt, he began to venture closer to the house, to be there waiting as soon as the girl got home in the afternoon.
When the weather was good, he even trailed her closer and closer to the cabin. Each day she coaxed him a little farther with bribes of roasted meat or fish from the previous night’s supper. She took care not to force or frighten him, moving slowly and speaking in a low, quiet way, waiting for him to decide to move farther on.
Eventually, against his better judgment, he was shadowing her most of the way there, as far as the underside of the silver house. From there he watched, kept his eyes open, but saw no sign of the savage or his son.
Near sunset each day, he followed her back to the man’s house, and after dinner, when the man returned to his shop, the cat climbed onto the man’s porch. The girl sat with him there—she on the porch swing at one end, and he on a soft, dry cushion she’d put down at the other. It was just the two of them then, the cat’s favorite hours.
C’mere, she would call from the house doorway or the yard or her window high up in the house. The sound of her voice was musical and sweet, and if he could hear it, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he would come. I’m going to name you Mr. C’mere, the girl said to him one day. Mr., for respect, and C’mere, because that’s what you come to. And he understood those sounds were his and his alone.
When the weather turned wintry, the girl kept closer to home. The man’s helper made a small, swinging door beside the main one. The helper put a window in the little door so the cat could see in, and the cat began to lie in front of it, watching the girl’s movements inside the house. The girl, on the inside, tried to urge him through it. The helper chuckled. The cat stayed stubbornly outside, though once when she was gone a long time, he pushed his head through to look around.
The days passed swiftly
