Mothered (61)

“What are you doing?”

Jackie’s presence startled her, but Grace didn’t have time to deal with her; this was starting to feel like a crisis.

“I can’t find the cat.” She strode past her mother through to the dining room. Coco wasn’t under the table, but she could be on one of the dining chairs. She leaned under the table: the chair seats were empty.

“I let her out,” said Jackie.

Grace bolted upright. “What . . .”

“She was nosing at the door.”

“You let her outside?” She gripped the tabletop, overwhelmed by a cacophony of emotions.

Jackie stood there with her arms crossed, indifferent to Grace’s distress. “Animals like fresh air, Grace. Don’t look at me like that.”

Grace felt like a teakettle about to boil with screams. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” She raced for the entryway and slipped into a pair of shoes. “When? How long has she been out?”

“She’s a cat, an animal, with natural animal instincts. You’re overreacting.”

“She’s an indoor cat! Someone else’s indoor cat!”

“You need to learn to manage your anger.”

“I have! I was!” But as Grace heard herself losing control, she realized she hadn’t been furious with anyone during the years when she and Jackie had lived apart. Without Jackie’s presence, Grace hadn’t had a temper to manage. “Where did she go?”

“I let her out the front. So she could sit with me on the porch.”

Grace dashed out the front door, unsure which way to look, which direction to start. Jackie came out after her, returning to her chair.

“She’s probably exploring. She’ll come back when she’s hungry.”

Rabid with exasperation, Grace uttered a short scream, then leaped off the porch.

“You’re being dramatic,” Jackie spat. “But last time I saw her she was heading that way.”

Grace turned around long enough to see her mother pointing around toward the backyard. She took off sprinting down the strip of grass that separated her house from her neighbor’s, but then slowed to a speed walk, afraid she might startle Coco.

She was half-aware of herself muttering like a crazy person, whispers invoking various gods and profanity and fluttery prayers. Coco was not going to come back when she was hungry. Coco would only smell strange and foreign things in this wild, stupefying landscape; she’d have no idea which way to go. Grace imagined her skulking through people’s yards, terrified. She imagined her crossing a street—and freezing midstride as a car hurtled toward her.

“Coco . . .” She had made the kissy noise so many times her lips were about to cramp. Grace stood in the middle of her little backyard and did a three-hundred-sixty-degree scan. Would Coco climb up a tree? Would she hide in someone’s garage? It wasn’t until Grace was facing her own back door that she saw the furry orange ball, pressed in the corner where her steps met the house.

“Coco!” She almost wept in relief. The cat uttered a pitiful mewl. Grace hunched down and made herself small as she tiptoed toward the cat, hoping Coco wouldn’t run off. “Good girl, good girl, it’s okay baby.”

As soon as she was close enough, Grace scooped the cat onto her shoulder and gratefully accepted that Coco dug her claws in, hanging on for dear life.

Seconds later, they were both inside. Coco jumped away, using Grace’s shoulder as a springboard, not quite ready to forgive or be consoled. The scratches she left were deep and painful, and Grace went right for the alcohol—not the rubbing alcohol, but the bottle of rosé that was chilling in the fridge. She quickly thanked all the gods and goddesses for keeping Coco safe—and for the wine’s easy screw-off top.

After a much-needed glug-and-swallow of the crisp, sweet rosé, Grace marched through the house and poked her head out the front door.

“I found the cat. If you ever let her out again I’ll kill you.” She didn’t wait for her mother to reply. Bottle of wine in hand, Grace made a purposeful retreat to her room, where she planned to drink until drunk.





38


Even her dreams were drunk. They caromed from one giddy scenario to the next, entertaining in their efforts to scare her. There was the one with the UFO enthusiasts, waiting in an orderly queue to get beamed up onto a hovering spaceship. Miguel was in the dream, laughing beside Grace as they watched from their picnic table, eating fried chicken. Somehow they were the only two to notice that the spaceship’s elevating “beam” was actually a straw. The UFO enthusiasts weren’t boarding a ship but were being sucked into a giant alien’s mouth.

The night was like a carnival of mind-numbing rides. Later she recalled the dizzying colors, a fun house of horrors with few specifics. One snippet lodged in her memory: she was in her house getting ready to go to a party, but she couldn’t find a pair of shoes. Or rather, every pair she found—in her closet, by the front door—had legs attached to them. Some were only short stumps of leg, ending midcalf, wearing her sandals or flip-flops. Others had knees and thighs, their feet stuffed into her favorite autumn boots. She had no memory of the dream resolving—of finding a pair of unoccupied shoes, of donning them and heading out.

The semiconscious part of her wondered if there was a parallel universe in which another Grace endlessly ran around the house looking for shoes. Endlessly finding only disembodied legs.