Or, rather, it used to be a cat. The toy has lost almost all of its stuffing. It flops on the table between us, an empty sack of fake fur. One green eye hangs from a few black threads, and the other is missing. A few embroidered whiskers are still visible beneath a dirty pink nose.
I clear my throat. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t understand.”
“This is Kitty Mew-Mew.”
“Okay…”
“Cole gave her to me for my fifth birthday. It was the only present I got that year because my mother totally forgot.”
I know how it feels to be neglected by a mother. Mam remembered my birthdays. But more often than not, they ended with her stretched out on the sofa in the parlor, a compress over her eyes as she mourned how hard it was to raise a hellion like me.
Megan tries a brave smile as she strokes the deflated toy. “I’ve kept her through…everything. But I want you to give her back to Cole now. Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I appreciate everything he’s ever done for me. I take and I take and I take, and I know that isn’t fair. It isn’t right. And I’m sorry.”
There’s something about the rhythm of her words, something that sounds familiar. It takes me a moment to realize it’s the way Breagha spoke in her bedroom, when she told me about the Dogfight, about everything she lost while I was in Ireland.
I pick up the stuffed cat. It doesn’t weigh more than a ball of cotton wool.
“Thank you,” Megan says, and there are tears in her eyes as I put the toy in my own pocket.
I have to try again, have to make her understand the danger she must be in. “You know that if you want to avoid T— Tarasov, you have to stay away from computers.”
“I know,” she says, tinting her words with exasperation. I suppose she can afford that now—she’s finished eating and drinking and handing off her toy. “Just like with Cole.”
“You need to use cash,” I insist.
“You think I don’t know that!” Half a dozen people glance at our table, then pretend they aren’t paying attention to the green-haired waif who’s almost in tears. “You think I don’t know that?” she repeats, collapsing in on herself again.
She’s terrified. She’s hopeless. She’s alone.
I take out my phone case. I’ve tucked five crisp hundreds in there. I knew I’d need to pay for lunch in cash, so the FourSeasons didn’t show up on any account Cole monitors. Cole gave me the money when I was shopping for my wedding dress.
I peel off three bills and pass them across the table.
“I can’t—” she says.
“Take it.”
“You aren’t?—”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not?—”
“Ladies!” The server is back. Megan sweeps the money from the table, as if she’s afraid he’ll steal it from us.
No, I tell him. We don’t want dessert. We don’t want coffee or tea. Just the check.
Megan waits for him to leave before she pushes back from the table. “I just need to use the restroom.”
I roll my eyes. Of course she’s going to duck out.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she says. “I’ll be back in just a minute.” She slips her phone out of her back pocket and puts it on the table. “See? I promise.”
The device is collateral. I feel like shite for even suggesting she’d run away.
“Go on,” I say.
The server brings the bill. I pay with cash. He comes back with my change.
