“I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Benji had said that to me once, as a joke, sitting on the kitchen floor between two dogs. He hadn’t known it was one of David’s favorite lines. He hadn’t known that David had built an entire lesson plan around it, that he’d stood in front of his classroom and told seventeen-year-olds that the most important thing Whitman ever wrote was permission to be more than one thing at a time.
I closed the book and put it back on the shelf and went to bed.
Some coincidences are just coincidences.
And some coincidences are the universe holding up a sign that you’re too stubborn to read, so it puts the same words in different mouths until you finally hear them.
I wasn’t ready to hear them yet.
But for the first time in two years, I was willing to admit they were being spoken.
Chapter 19
Benji
I’d known it was coming. Peter had been updating the whiteboard with adoption milestones for weeks, each entry written in the green marker that meant “scheduled event” and annotated with the precise, clinical shorthand of a man who had done this many times before and who understood that the logistics of letting go required the same organizational rigor as the logistics of holding on.
The photo shoot had worked.
Mia’s campaign had worked.
Within seventy-two hours of posting, every kitten had an approved application.
LaTavia was going to a retired couple in Seminole Heights who had lost their cat the previous year and had been waiting for the right match. Kelly was going to a family with two kids who had driven to the clinic specifically because their daughter had seen the photo of Kelly on Peter’s shoulder and haddeclared, with the unshakable certainty of a child who had found her destiny, that this was her cat. Solange was going to a veterinary student who had written a two-page essay that Peter described as “thorough.” I suspected it had made him emotional, though he would deny this under oath. LeToya, the biter, was going to a woman who ran a cat café in St. Pete. She had specifically requested “your most aggressive kitten” because she needed a cat with enough personality to anchor the café’s social media presence.
And then there was Beyoncé.
Beyoncé was going to a family in South Tampa with a large house and a fenced yard and two other cats.
I was fine with it.
I was completely, totally, absolutely fine with it.
“You’re not fine with it,” Peter said on the morning of the adoption day, watching me sit on the bathroom floor surrounded by kittens who didn’t know that today was the last time they’d swarm over my legs and bite my shoelaces and climb my shirt while I tried to give them their morning formula.
“I’mfine, Peter. I’m a grown adult who understands how foster care works. The whole point is that they go to good homes. That’s the goal. I’ve been working toward this goal. This is a success.”
“You’ve been in the bathroom for forty-fiveminutes.”
“I’m doing the final feeding. Final feedings take time. You can’t rush a final feeding.”
“You’ve been doing the final feeding for forty-five minutes, and I can hear you narrating their life stories through the door.”
Fine.
That was accurate.
I had, during the final feeding, delivered a comprehensive biographical monologue to each kitten, covering their personality traits, their greatest achievements, their most memorable escape attempts, and my personal hopes for their futures.
LaTavia had received a speech about inner peace.
Kelly had received a speech about finding people who would let you sleep on their shoulders.
Solange had received a speech about the power of watching and waiting.
LeToya had received a speech about never apologizing for her teeth.
