Don’t Let Me Go(44)

“Thank you,” he said, pulling a big white cloth handkerchief out of his jeans pocket and wiping his nose with it.

“I’m sorry if you have a cold,” she said, feeling that she wanted to talk to him more, but not really knowing what to say next.

“Allergies,” he said.

“What are you allergic to?”

“Ragweed and pollen, but it’s winter. Mold. Cats, but I can’t imagine my father keeping a cat, so I guess there must be some mold in here.”

“Why do you think he did it?” Grace asked.

She hadn’t known she was about to ask that, and she could feel how much the question surprised them both.

Peter looked straight into her eyes for a moment.

Then he said, “Would you like to come in?”

“OK.”

She walked into the living room, carefully, as if there might be a special place not to step, and she had better know it, somehow, magically, in advance. She hoisted herself up on to Mr. Lafferty’s couch.

“I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to ask that. Mrs. Hinman said Mr. Lafferty had grown-up kids, but she said none of them even talked to him.”

Peter Lafferty sighed, the way grown-ups do when they’re trying to decide what to keep to themselves and what to say.

“Seems a little weird to talk about that,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault. So…I guess…since you know that much anyway…I have three brothers and two sisters. So, six of us in all. And not a one of them talked to our father. Just like what you heard. Hadn’t for more than ten years. I was the only one who would still call him now and again, but a couple of weeks ago he just went too far with me, so I broke off contact. So, there. Now you know.”

He sneezed another big sneeze.

“Mold,” Grace said.

“I don’t know. This feels more like my cat sneeze.”

“I don’t think Mr. Lafferty had a cat.”

“No, I don’t suppose so. What about the people across the hall? Do they have a cat?”

“It’s not two people, it’s just Felipe, but he doesn’t have a cat. Nobody does. I don’t think cats are even allowed in this building. So, do you think the reason he did what he did is because you said you wouldn’t talk to him any more?”

Peter sighed, and he slid the file cabinet drawer closed.

“I guess it didn’t help,” he said. “It pretty much left him all alone.”

Then there was a silence, and, during it, Grace felt she suddenly had the answer to something that was very important, but that had been hiding just beyond her reach for a long time. It was the answer to what was wrong with everything and everybody, which is a lot to suddenly know.

“That’s it!” she shouted.

“That’s what?”

“Nothing. I just figured something out. Something really important. You just helped me figure something out.”

“I’d like to talk to you some more,” he said, “especially about how you knew him. But…if you’ll just hang on a second. I just have to use the bathroom. Excuse me.”

Grace waited while he walked through the bedroom and disappeared.

“Oh, my God,” she heard him say.

“What?”

“Guess what I just found?”

“I give up. What?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he came walking out of the bedroom carrying what looked like a deep plastic tray. Like a storage box, but not as tall, and with no lid. It smelled funny. Bad funny. Like the sharp smell that insulted your nose when you passed by that doorway where some homeless guys peed on the bricks.

“What is that?” Grace asked.

“It’s a litter box.”

“I don’t know what a litter box is.”

“It’s something you have to keep when you have a cat.”

? ? ?

“Kitty, kitty, kitty,” Grace cooed in her quietest voice.

She could see him under there, under the bed. He had pretty gold eyes and he was looking at her, but he wouldn’t come out.

“You’re pretty,” she said. “I like the way the colors change in a line right down the middle of your face. It’s cool.”

He had blotches of white and dark and an in-between color that was sort of strawberry blond, and Grace could almost halfway remember what you call a cat that looks like that, but the word stayed just out of her reach.

“Are you scared?” she asked him. “I bet you are, because you never even met me before, but you must be really hungry, too, because nobody fed you for days. Now, don’t try to tell me you’re not hungry, because I know nobody fed you for days, so you can’t fool me. Peter? He must be really hungry. Will you look and see if there’s anything for him to eat?”

“Then I’d have to come back in,” Peter said from out in the hallway.

“Please? It’s important.”

While they were waiting, she whispered to the cat a little more, because her loud voice might scare him.

After what seemed like a long time, Peter came into the bedroom. He was holding his cloth handkerchief over his nose and mouth like a mask, and in his other hand he held an open can of salmon.

“Ooh, that’ll be good,” Grace said. “If anything’ll get him out from under the bed, I bet that’ll do it.”