The Winters(34)

Katya, pulled into the drama, silently read the elaborate kitten care instructions over my shoulder, which included round-the-clock feedings for at least another week, sterilizing equipment, and helping them with everything from temperature regulation to going to the bathroom.

“Wow. More work than a baby,” I said.

“Well, you wanted more to do around here.”

I looked up the closest pet store, which stocked kitten milk powder and other supplies, then called down to Gus, for the first time sending him on an important errand.

“It’ll be dead by the time I get back,” he said.

“Let’s take that chance.”

I hung up and washed my hands. Then I dug out a glass turkey baster and warmed up some watery milk for the kitten to drink.

“Where are you going to keep it?” Katya asked, her voice stern. I looked around the kitchen. “Nope. Not here. I am not going to have a dirty animal in my spotless kitchen. And no, you cannot bathe it in this sink.”

I didn’t want to leave it in the barn. The chemicals I’d be using in the boathouse were noxious, they’d irritate her, maybe even poison something this small. No, it needed to stay warm, and near enough so that I could hear it, to keep up with its feedings. Even for a week. I glanced down the hall that led to the back door. With its warmth and proximity, the greenhouse would be a perfect place to incubate a kitten until it was healthy enough to be spayed or neutered, along with its mother.

I asked for the key.

“I don’t know where it is,” Katya said. “And even if I did, Mr. Winter forbids anyone going in there. Ever.”

“I’m sure he’d rather I keep it there than in our bedroom,” I said, holding out my hand for the key. “I promise, if anyone gets in trouble, it’s going to be me.”

Keeping her eyes on me, she reached her hand into the sugar bowl above the sink. She placed the key on the counter next to the damp tea towels. “I did not give this to you. You just found it.”

I scooped up the kitten from the bowl. The corridor that led to the door was dark. I lived here and yet I had a sense that I was trespassing on Rebekah’s prime territory.

I slid the key into the sticky lock, fussing with it a bit until it gave in my hand. I was shaking. I eased open the door. Inside the air was heavy and close. I inhaled deeply as the kitten stirred. Nothing grew here and yet it smelled sweet and loamy with possibility, the oddly angled glass generating a naturally intense heat. I held out my free hand as I walked down the middle of the star, shadows competing with the sun to caress my skin. From the outside, I had agreed with Louisa’s assessment, that the greenhouse was interesting but ultimately a cold, jagged intrusion on a classic aesthetic. But inside it was warm and light-filled, magic from every angle. Even the gnarly rose stumps looked like they could be revived with just a little water and attention. I could smell and feel the life that had once been in here. From beneath a table I pulled a wooden crate that housed green pots of dead seedlings and carried it over to the sink by the door. I placed the bowl with the now sleeping kitten in the sink. Using a piece of dusty canvas, I created a makeshift cubby in the crate for it to sleep in. All I needed was a blanket, and the conditions for it to thrive in this place would be perfect. I turned on the tap and let the brown water run until it was clear. When I placed the kitten in the warm water, it turned out not to be gray at all but the same beautiful cream color as its mother, with darker orange stripes. Its eyes, cleared of gunk, were a bright mossy green.

“So you are pretty,” I said, dipping her in the water and shaking the dirt loose. Afterwards, I wrapped her—for it was indeed a female—back up in the tea towel and carried her to a sunny spot to dry. “And you’re going to get me in a lot of trouble.”

I could see why Rebekah had loved it in here. It had none of the draftiness of Asherley and, even barren, a warmth that reminded me of home. This place could be beautiful again, too, I thought. Why build this lovely, useful structure if it only thrived while Rebekah was alive?

I kissed the kitten and placed her on an empty sod bag, away from the bare earth so she didn’t get dirty again.

I would talk to Max about this place.



* * *



? ? ?

Dani stayed away the rest of the time Max was gone, and I was happy for the break, as was her tutor, it seemed. I missed Max, spoke to or texted him a couple of times a day, glad to hear Dani had told him she’d gone to Louisa’s New York pied-à-terre so that I didn’t have to. Max was unfazed; she did it often, he said, promising she took homework with her. Fine. If this wasn’t a problem for Max, I wouldn’t make it a problem either. That would be my new philosophy. Follow his lead.

With her away, I thought I’d find myself bounding down the stairs in the morning, skipping through the dim corridors, exalting in the freedom of feeling neither watched nor ignored. But in a strange way, Dani’s absence exacerbated Rebekah’s presence. Wandering in and out of all the rooms, holding the kitten, familiarizing myself with each one’s purpose and view, I saw Rebekah’s hand everywhere. In the parlor, I ran my fingers along the French wallpaper looking for the seams, remembering where she had stood in those first photographs I pored over. In the third-floor gallery, the kitten buried in my neck, I lingered over each photo, noticing that the glass in the picture I’d broken had already been replaced. It looked to be an older photo, black-and-white, taken somewhere in Europe. Rebekah stood on a bridge, a line of blurry ancient buildings behind her. She was wearing a light-colored trench, her fists deep in her pockets, smiling impatiently at whoever took the picture, likely Max. I imagined her demurring at first, saying, Enough with the camera, Max, let’s just go to dinner, and Max saying, No, one more, the light here is perfect. Fine, she’d say, take it quickly. I’m getting hungry. This photo was the product of a loving eye, his loving eye. I thought again back to the awkward moment Max snapped my picture on the boat. Why had he not taken more photos of me like he did her? Now, looking at my reflection in the photo’s glass, holding a mangy little animal, my hair matted from being stuffed under a hat, my face dirty from working on the boat, I knew the answer.