Nine Lives (Lily Dale Mystery #1)(4)

Now it’s all up to me, and how the heck am I supposed to squeeze playtime into this crazy day?

“Maybe we can play later,” she tells Max as he appears in the doorway with the Candyland box and a hopeful expression.

He’s still barefoot and wearing the pajamas she’d told him to change earlier this morning. A five-year-old version of his late father, he has the same sandy brown cowlick above his forehead and the same solemn brown eyes behind his glasses. Now they widen when he sees the cat.

“Where did he come from?”

“I’m not sure. You have to get dressed, Max. It’s almost noon.”

“I will.” He crouches beside the kitty. “Can we keep him?”

The timing of the question is so ludicrous, it’s a wonder Bella manages to keep from blurting, Are you nuts?

Instead, she counts to three before gently reminding her son, “We’re leaving tomorrow, and I’m sure he already has a home.” Lucky him.

“But Doctor Lex said that I should get a pet, remember? And the only reason we couldn’t was because it was against the rules. Now that we’re moving, we don’t have any rules.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She stands and wraps her arms around him. “I’m sorry.”

Doctor Lex is the child psychologist Max started seeing last winter. The kindly man did, indeed, mention that a pet might provide effective grief therapy for a child who’s too shy—around other kids, anyway—to have made any kindergarten friends of his own. His teacher had suggested that Bella set up some play dates for him, but Sam’s illness enveloped her. She didn’t have the heart, or the time or energy, to reach out to other parents who would ask painful questions. She’d distanced herself from even her own friends during those dark days.

In the aftermath, she realized too late that Max wasn’t the only one who was lonely and isolated. Doctor Lex was right. Her grieving son sorely needed companionship. The landlord’s zero-tolerance no-pet policy was the only thing that stopped Bella from acting on the suggestion to at least get him a parakeet or goldfish. But now . . .

“He can come with us to Grandma’s,” Max says as the cat brushes against their bare legs, purring to show them how darned lovable he is. “Please?”

Again, Bella chooses her words carefully: “Grandma is allergic, just like Daddy was.”

She doesn’t know that for a fact, but as it is, her mother-in-law probably isn’t thrilled about welcoming into her perfect household her son’s imperfect widow and a child prone to scattering crumbs, Matchbox cars, and Lego pieces. There’s no way they can add an animal to the mix.

Still purring, the cat stretches and takes a leisurely stroll down the back steps. Bella admires his markings aloud to Max, pointing out the angled stripes that form an M above his eyes, the hallmark of a mackerel tabby. Even his tail is striped, standing straight up with the tip curved over.

“If it was red and white, it would look just like a candy cane,” Max observes. “I love him. We have to keep him, Mom.”

“He already has a home,” she repeats.

“But how do you know that?”

“Because stray cats don’t wear collars, so he’s someone’s pet and he—”

She breaks off as the cat stops walking, lies down on the walkway, and rolls over onto his back, arching to expose his belly as if inviting them to rub it.

“And he what?” Max prompts as she raises an eyebrow.

“And he isn’t a he; he’s a she,” Bella informs her son with a smile, “and she’s about to become a mommy.”

“How do you know that?”

She indicates the parallel rows of exposed pink nipples like buttons on a double-breasted suit and offers a simplified explanation of how mother nature is preparing the cat to nurse her impending litter—a sizable one and due any second, judging by her bulging stomach.

She rests a hand on Max’s shoulder to steer him back into the house as the mother-to-be stretches lazily in the sun.

“Come on, kiddo. Let’s let her rest. She’s going to need it.”

*

A little over twenty-four hours later, Bella’s sneakered footsteps echo across the hardwood floors of the home where fate catapulted her from bride to wife to mother to widow.

Ever since she realized she’d have to move, she’s been trying to focus on what lies ahead, not behind. Now, however, she allows herself one last look to make sure she didn’t forget anything. There are plenty of nooks and cubbies to check: closets within closets and cabinets within cabinets, cupboards beside the fireplace, compartments under the stairs and concealed beneath window seats . . .

Sam’s voice echoes back over the years. “I don’t want to live in a boring box in the city,” he said when they were apartment hunting before the wedding. “Promise me that we’ll find a cozy place that has character, and a backyard with lots of trees.”

They did. These sun-flooded rooms radiate old-fashioned charm, with high ceilings and original woodwork. A leafy backyard beckons beyond the paned windows.

Too bad her mother-in-law’s Chicago neighborhood is a boring old maze of monochromatic rectangles in the sky.

“Don’t worry, Sam,” she whispers around a lump in her throat. “Wherever Max and I wind up after we get back on our feet, I promise you it will be just like this—cozy with character, in a real house with a yard. And I promise you . . . I promise . . .”