‘Do you understand?’ she asked. Her fingers on my cheek, light and cool. ‘You must never tell anyone about this. Not your friends at school, and not your father. It must be a secret between you and me alone.’
I nodded.
‘Do not cry,’ Mommy said. ‘Come with me.’ She pulled me up with a strong arm.
‘Where are we going?’
‘We are not going anywhere. We are walking,’ she said. ‘When your feelings get too big, you must come to the woods and walk.’ The nurse tone crept into her voice somewhat. ‘Exercise is good for the mind and the body. Thirty minutes each day is recommended. It will help you to master yourself.’
We marched along the trail in silence for a time. Mommy’s blue dress flew out behind her in the breeze. She looked like something from a myth, here among the trees.
‘They would call you “insane” if they knew what you were,’ she said. ‘That word. I abhor it. Promise me that you will never call a woman insane, Theodore.’
‘I promise,’ I said. ‘Can we go home now?’ I thought of Snowball’s pink paws and eyes. The tears rose again. There was still a lot of feeling left in me.
‘Not yet,’ Mommy said. ‘We keep walking until the need to cry has passed. You will tell me when that is.’
I took hold of her skirt and clung to it with both fists as we walked. My hands were still dirty from the grave we had dug. They left finger marks on the blue organza. ‘Thank you for not being mad at me,’ I said. I meant the dress, the mouse, everything.
‘Mad,’ she said, thoughtful. ‘No, I am not mad. For a long time, I have feared that this was in you. Now it is confirmed. I find that it is a relief. I no longer need to think of you as my son. No longer must I search my heart for a love that I cannot feel.’
I cried out and tears welled hot in my eyes. ‘You can’t mean that,’ I said. ‘Please don’t say that.’
‘It is the truth.’ She did look down at me, now. Her eyes were remote and serious. ‘You are monstrous. However, you are my responsibility. I will continue to do what I can for you, because that is my duty, and I have never been afraid of my duty. I will not permit you to be called “insane”. In this country, in particular, they love to throw that word around like a ball.’
She waited patiently as I cried. When the tears slowed she offered me a tissue, and her hand. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘Walk.’
We did not turn for home until my feet were sore.
I tried to mend the dolls and even the music box, with crazy glue and a book about clocks. Both were broken beyond repair. Mommy kept the music box but she put the dolls in the trash and they are gone for ever; another part of her I can never get back, another thing I broke that cannot be mended.
I keep meaning to record the recipe for my vinegar strawberry sandwich, but I don’t have the heart for it now.
Olivia
Light, at last. Ted’s hands on me, lifting me out of the dark. Bourbon hangs thick on his breath.
‘Hey, kitten,’ he breathes into my fur. ‘You ready to behave? I hope so. I missed you so much. Come watch TV with me. Tell you something, I’ll do the stroking and you do the purring, doesn’t that sound good?’
I twist out of his hands and rake my claws across his face. I slash at his arms and chest, feel cotton and flesh part, feel the blood come. Then I run and hide beneath the couch.
He calls to me. ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Come out, kitten.’ He fetches a plate with two chicken fingers on it, and puts it in the centre of the room by the recliner. He chirps and calls me, ‘Here, kitty, kitty, kitty …’ The chicken fingers smell really good but I stay put. I’m hungry and thirsty, but my anger is stronger.
I feel like I don’t even know you any more, I say, though of course all he hears is a hiss. In the end he gives up, which is typical. He can never take responsibility for anything.
As he goes, something falls out of the cuff of his pants. It is little and white, but I can’t quite make it out. The thing bounces and my tail twitches. I want to chase it. Ted doesn’t notice.
In the kitchen, I hear the hollow crack of a beer being opened, the clicking of his throat as he swallows, and his heavy tread as he climbs the stairs. The record player blares into life. The sad woman begins to sing in long elongated vowels about dancing. He’ll lie in bed now, music playing low, drinking until there’s nothing left to drink.
Right now I’m hiding under the couch, even though the dust bunnies tickle my nose very badly. I have to record this.
So, obviously, I had to go get the thing that fell out of the cuff of Ted’s pants. It was irresistible. Cats and curiosity and all that, you know?
I stalked towards it, belly flat to the floor. The scent came from it in waves. It was the scent I lick off my paws and jaws after Night-time has been with me. It was the scent that came from the little white flip-flop. That’s when I knew this was bad, bad.
I took the thing in my mouth. It turned out to be a square of paper, folded so many times that it was like a hard little pellet. I thought, Why would Ted carry it in his pants cuff? Weird.
I got safely back under the couch and teased the note open with a claw. It wasn’t paper, actually, but a scrap of white tree bark, thin and beautiful. But it had been used as
