This Close to Okay(36)

They walked next door, saw an orange flick behind the burning bush in front of her neighbor’s windows.

“There he is,” Tallie said, pointing and bending over. Emmett stepped ahead of her and went to the other side of the bush, shining light into the darkness. “Come here, baby,” she said to the cat she could now see was sitting behind the hedging, shaking rainwater off his head. Jim took a step back and licked his paws. “He’s very stubborn.” She reached for him.

Emmett handed her the flashlight and got on his hands and knees. With his longer arms, he stretched and gently took Jim by the scruff. Lifted him, cradled him. Tallie heard her neighbor’s front door open.

“Tallie, is that you?” her neighbor asked from the porch.

“Yes. Sorry. Jim…my cat…he ran over here, but we have him now,” Tallie said. She looked at her neighbor, touched the top of the cat’s head. She glanced up at Emmett, wondering if he was feeling okay. Having something specific and distracting to focus on—like hunting a cat in the rain—could help put the brakes on anxiety attacks and anchor a person who was disconnecting. It was dark, but Tallie could still tell he’d lost the spaciness he’d held in his eyes when the power had gone out; now his eyes were warm with color. He stood there, petting the cat, whispering to it.

“Oh, you’re fine,” her neighbor said. She wasn’t her nosiest neighbor, but Tallie knew she’d wonder who Emmett was since Tallie didn’t have many new visitors. “Power’s supposed to be restored soonish, but you know how they are. I just reported it.”

“I’ll report it, too,” Tallie said.

“Hi there,” her neighbor said to Emmett.

“Hi.”

“This is my friend Emmett. And now we have the cat. Sorry for rummaging around in your bushes,” Tallie said. She smiled and pushed the dripping branches back where they belonged.

With the streetlamps glowing, she could make out her neighbor staring at Emmett for a little too long before turning to Tallie smiling, waving. “Good for you, Tallie…on everything,” she said.

*



Once they were on her porch, Emmett gave the soppy cat to her. She cradled Jim’s head and fussed at him before taking him in the house. The cat sauntered into the kitchen and stopped to clean himself some more. Pam was unbothered, still sleeping on the couch next to Tallie’s phone. She grabbed it, opened the electricity company app, found her neighborhood and house on the little cartoon map, reported her power outage.

She and Emmett went outside and sat on the steps. He lit a cigarette. After loading the live radio feed of the game on his phone, he told her the Giants were winning, three to nothing. He said it like the score was good luck. She checked the electricity app again and told him the power should be back in an hour or so, but he didn’t seem concerned about her lights being out anymore. People with anxiety and mood disorders, people who were struggling, fighting hard against suicidal ideation and depression, often had wide mood swings. She had loads of experience with clients who went from fine to unwell in a matter of seconds.

Coping mechanisms: cigarettes, fresh air, finding cats in the rain, listening to the baseball game.

The baseball commentary made her feel better about the world, too, all those numbers and the neat way they rattled them off at the end of the games, shrinking the big business of the innings into small, organized boxes. He adjusted the volume of the play-by-play as he stepped down, leaned against her house, looking up.

“If you have a ladder, I’ll clean your gutters out for you. They’re full of leaves,” Emmett said.

“Yes, I have a ladder. But I don’t know if you should be climbing up on things.” She thought of babysitting her nephew when he was a toddler, how all-consuming it was to keep a little boy from climbing too high, choking, running into the street, or poking his eye out somehow. She didn’t want to treat Emmett like a child, but any diversion from potential danger felt like a proper move.

“Worried I’ll jump off?”

“No, I—”

“Well…it’s not so high up there. Wouldn’t do me any good, really,” he said, turning to look at her.

“Stop it. It’s not that. You just don’t have to do so much. You cook and do dishes…you’re a cat rescuer. I mean, wow.”

“Joel used to clean them out?” he asked, giving his attention back to the gutters.

“I guess. I never really paid attention to stuff like that. I hadn’t noticed they needed cleaning out,” she said, stepping over to look up with him.

“The rain shouldn’t be pouring off the side. It should be running smoothly through and out. Over here.” Emmett pointed with his cigarette hand. “That’s why it feels like we’re inside a car wash when we’re in the house. Because your gutters need cleaning out.”

“Oops. I didn’t know that. I kind of like the sound it makes,” she said. She liked the sound it made falling on the hood of her slicker, too. She watched the rainwater spill out of the gutters, listened to the dulcet drip-drip-dripping. “Supposed to ease up in the morning…sure…maybe you could do it then? I’ll pay you in breakfast and coffee?”

Coping mechanisms: cigarettes, fresh air, finding cats in the rain, listening to the baseball game, cleaning out gutters.