Don’t Let Me Go(55)

Apparently she was not going to answer.

But he had passed a point of no return in this horrifyingly new territory, and he needed to have his say. So he spoke his piece anyway, right through the door, hoping it would somehow enter her consciousness through a rear entry the way a person in a coma knows when you’ve been reading to her. And he said it in a loud and aggressive voice, which frightened him, even though the voice was his own.

“You may not hurt Grace. Do you hear me? You may not. Ever. Not ever again. I’m right here. Right upstairs from you. And I will not allow it. You hurt this girl again over my dead body. Do you understand me?”

No answer.

Billy turned to see Grace standing at the top of the stairs, holding her cat, her mouth gaping open, her eyes wide. A mirror of sorts. He turned back to face the door.

“I hope you’re listening to me, Mrs. Ferguson.”

“She’s not really a Mrs.,” Grace half whispered from the top of the stairs.

“It doesn’t matter,” Billy said evenly. “The rest applies.”

He pounded on the door one more time, three pounds, each one ricocheting like gunshot in his sore and shaky gut. The inside of him felt sandpapered, skinless, like a raw and open wound exposed to additional damage.

“Never again!” he screamed.

He felt a tug on the leg of his pajama pants, and it made him jump.

“Billy,” Grace whispered, in a voice quieter than a normal Grace whisper. It would have been whispering for anybody. “Billy. You’re out in the hall.”

The sandpapered expanse of his gut returned an exhausted pang.

“Actually,” he said, “I knew. This time I knew.”

He felt both of her hands wrap around one of his.

“You better come back in,” she said. “Come on. I’m taking you home.”

? ? ?

“I feel like a wet dishrag,” Billy said.

He sat slumped on his couch, Grace sitting next to him, cat on her lap. Both Grace and the cat stared at Billy constantly, as though he might be about to spontaneously combust.

“You look pretty bad, too. I can’t believe you said all that stuff.”

“It needed saying.”

“All kinds of stuff needs saying, all the time. But it’s not usually you saying it. Even Mr. Lafferty the Cat was surprised. Weren’t you, Mr. Lafferty the Cat?”

“We changed the cat’s name,” Billy said weakly.

“You can’t change his name. And who’s ‘we’?”

“Felipe and I.”

“You can’t change his name. I promised him.”

“Well, see, the problem is, she’s not a him. She’s a her.”

“He’s a girl?”

“She is. Yes. So we’ve been calling her Ms. Lafferty the Cat.”

“You can’t change his name. I mean her name. I promised her that was her name. So her name is just going to have to be Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat.”

“Oh, I think not,” Billy said, feeling as though these simple words were exhausting his last crumb of energy.

“Why not?”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit long?”

“I’ll ask him if he minds. I mean her. I’ll ask her if she minds.” Grace held the cat up to her ear, pressing her face against the soft fur of the cat’s side. “She says she doesn’t mind.” A long silence. Then Grace said, “She couldn’t even stay clean for three days.”

Billy said nothing, having no idea what to say.

“I meant my mom, not the cat.”

“I knew what you meant.”

“She knew I’d be gone again the minute she got loaded. And what did she do? She got loaded. I guess she loves drugs more than she loves me.”

“Addiction is a weird phenomenon,” Billy said, barely over a whisper.

“Have you ever been addicted to anything?”

“I’m addicted to staying inside my own apartment.”

“Oh. Right. But you just went out.”

“True.”

“Because my mom not hurting me was more important.”

“I guess so.”

“So why can’t my own mom do that?”

“I wish I knew.”

“It sucks.”

“It does. Yes.”

“Don’t tell Rayleen I complained.”

“I think she would agree that you’re entitled in this case,” he said. “Some things just require complaint.”

But, meanwhile, Billy was thinking, Sure, I broke my addiction for a minute or two. That doesn’t mean I could do it from here on out. But he didn’t say that out loud to Grace, because he didn’t want to strip away her last shred of hope. If she had one.

? ? ?

Billy looked up sometime later to see Rayleen standing in his living room, holding and hugging Grace. Grace must have let her in. Had he fallen asleep, or just slipped into a coma of emotional exhaustion?

“What’s wrong with Billy?” Rayleen asked Grace.

“He yelled at my mom, and now he’s all wiped out from it.”

“Billy yelled at your mom?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think she heard him or anything. But you should have seen him. He was plenty mad. I think even if she’d come to the door, I bet he would’ve yelled right into her face. And he knew he was out in the hall and everything.”