Don’t Let Me Go(45)

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About an hour later, Grace stood in front of Rayleen’s door with the cat purring in her arms. Every now and then the cat rubbed the side of his face against Grace’s jaw.

She knocked quietly, so she wouldn’t startle him.

She heard Rayleen call through the door, asking who it was, but she was afraid to call back, because, after all, she had only just very recently gained the cat’s trust. And you have to be careful with the trust of a scared animal, once you’ve finally got it.

After a minute Rayleen opened the door anyway. Cautiously.

“Oh, it’s just—Oh, my God. Grace. What have you got there?”

“My new cat.”

“Your cat?”

“Yeah. Mine. Now.”

“Well, I don’t know where you’re planning on keeping him. Not in here, that’s all I know. Not in this apartment.”

“But he—”

“Grace. I’m allergic to cats.”

“Oh, no! Not you, too!”

“What do you mean, not me, too? Who else is allergic to cats?”

“Peter. Mr. Lafferty’s son Peter. That’s why I have to take him. That’s why I have to keep him, because Peter is allergic, and also because he has to go home on a plane. You sure he can’t stay here?”

“My throat will close up and I won’t be able to breathe.”

“Oh. I guess I have to ask Billy, then.”

“What about Felipe?”

“What’s wrong with asking Billy?”

“You know Billy’s not big on change.”

“I heard that,” Billy said.

Grace turned to see him peeking out through the crack of his door, the safety chain blocking her view of part of his nose.

“Sorry,” Rayleen said, “but…I mean…was I wrong?”

“That depends. What’s the question in question?”

Grace said, “Can my new cat stay at your place for now?”

“Hmm,” Billy’s partially-hidden face said. “Maybe you should ask Felipe.”

“Told you,” Rayleen said.

“But you’re home,” Grace said, in her just-at-the-edge-of-whining voice. “You’re home, to take care of him. Felipe has to work. And Mr. Lafferty will be lonely, and he’ll be scared.”

Grace watched Billy glance up, over her head. She turned around to see Rayleen catching his eye. So they were doing that thing grown-ups do when the kid needs a talking-to, and they’re trying to decide who has to take the job.

“Honey,” Rayleen said. “Grace. Mr. Lafferty is dead.”

“Not Mr. Lafferty the man. Mr. Lafferty the cat.”

Billy said, “You named the cat Mr. Lafferty?”

“Yeah,” Grace said, proudly.

“Won’t that be a little weird?”

“What’s weird about it?”

“Because it’s the same name as…Mr. Lafferty.”

“But he’s dead,” Grace said, exasperated. “Like you guys were just trying to tell me about half a second ago, as if I didn’t know that already. So that still leaves only one Mr. Lafferty.”

“I’m going back in,” Rayleen said. “Before my throat closes up.”

Grace turned back to Billy. “Can I come in? Please? I mean, we. Can we come in, please?”

Billy sighed a very noisy sigh. More noisy than any sigh really needed to be. The kind of noisy that’s more to make a point. But then he took off the safety chain and let them in, which Grace was pretty sure he would. She’d pretty much known all along that he’d sigh that big sigh, but then he’d go ahead and let them in.

She sat on Billy’s couch and put her ear to Mr. Lafferty’s side to listen to the purring.

“He just sort of purrs all the time. Ever since I got him to come out from under Mr. Lafferty’s bed, he hasn’t stopped purring even once, and it’s really cool when you put your ear right up against him. It sounds like he has a motor or something, and it makes you feel good all the way inside, like all the way down to your tummy. You should try it, you really should. I know you, and I just know you’d like it.”

Billy sat on the very end of the couch, acting like couches made him nervous all of a sudden, but Grace figured it was really the cat he was nervous about, even though he wasn’t looking at the cat.

“He’s a pretty cat,” Billy said. As if that was the only good thing he could think of to say about Mr. Lafferty. “I’m not much of a cat person — or a dog person, for that matter — but I always thought calico cats were pretty.”

“Calico! That’s the kind I was trying to think of.”

“I still think he needs a better name,” Billy said.

“I think Mr. Lafferty is a perfect name.”

“But it’s confusing.”

“I don’t think it’s confusing.”

“Look. Think about what you said a minute ago. He’s been purring ever since you got him to come out from under Mr. Lafferty’s bed. So, Mr. Lafferty’s been purring ever since Mr. Lafferty came out from under Mr. Lafferty’s bed. Confusing.”

“But he won’t be under the bed any more, and Peter has to take all Mr. Lafferty’s stuff and either take it home or get rid of it, so then Mr. Lafferty won’t have a bed any more.”