Page 56 of Kitten

James didn’t notice when I entered. He knelt on thefloor next to the bed, his arms folded next to Silver, his eyes fixed on her face. In the dim light, his brown hair looked black. Standing above him, I located the crown of his head, the small naked spot from which his hair sprouted and poured over the rest of his scalp. I felt that if I pressed it, I might hurt him, he might faint.

We buried Silver by the crag, the remains of the sunset spreading out like a bruise. James wrapped her in her towel. He lifted her so I could kiss her nose, hard and cold like always. I was grateful for that. Then we dug a hole with our hands, neither of us pausing until the sand grew damp, then wet, then dissolved into water. Together we lowered her into the ditch. She lay on her side with her limbs outstretched as if running, as if swimming. I didn’t want to make a sound, so I talked to her in my head. When I turned to look at James, his lips were moving, too. I wanted to reach my hand down to touch her one more time. I thought to myself: This is your last chance. Do it, now, touch her. So I did.

Afterward, James pushed sand into the ditch. We continued until it filled, and then we walked home in the dark.

—

I dreamed of Silver allnight long. In the first dream, I was swimming in the sea when she came to me, the tip of her nose sparkling. Then we were in the kitchen, but this time Silver was a human with long furry limbs, and it was terrible and wonderful at the same time. In another dream she was James’s and my baby. I rocked her in my arms as he repeated to me, “She is very special,” at which she became monstrously big and struck our faces with her clawless paws.And then I was alone again on the beach sucking on something tart, whirling it around my tongue like a fallen tooth until it slipped out of my mouth and revealed itself to be Silver’s nose. I woke up pleased that she was haunting me like some child poltergeist. Menacing as a ghost, sweet as a girl. We would play together for a little while longer.

19

We left Holme on Saturday afternoon. The car radio played some reality show I didn’t know people still listened to, where the host called up the participants’ boyfriends to see if they’d cheat on them with her. It wasn’t clear whether either of us was really listening.

I attempted to break the silence. “What a dumb show.” My voice came out high and artificial.

James nodded. When I switched the channel, he protested. “I was listening to that.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

I flicked through my phone. My mother had sent me fifty dollars in the middle of the night. I pictured her lying awake, caught in the insomnia that used to plague her when I was a child. I used to slip into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face to stay up with her, but in the end, I always fell back asleep. It occurred to me that her insomnia probably didn’t end when I grew up, we’d just stopped sharing a bed.

What was she thinking when she sent me the second batch of money? She would’ve known the transactionwould be time-stamped. Did she want me to know she suffered? That when I wasn’t thinking of her, she was, as always, thinking of me? I could picture her saying:Look how much I care, I can’t even sleep because I love you.

But maybe I was being cynical. I remembered what I felt yesterday, sitting alone on the bathroom floor. Possibility of a love without negotiation. Humility of being graced. Could I summon those feelings again? It was tricky, like trying to pin down a floater in the periphery of my vision. Still, knowing that the feelings existed, that they might creep back into sight, felt like enough.

Maybe my mother was being kind. Maybe she only sent me the money because I needed it.

I had a few new emails. Two of them were automatic rejections to job applications I’d submitted yesterday. I deleted the emails as the sound of a woman’s sobbing aggravated the speakers. Then I opened the last email, saw that I was being offered an interview, and laughed out loud.

“What?” James turned down the volume.

“It’s nothing, I just—” I laughed again. “I applied for some jobs recently, nothing complicated, just those auto-apply things. And one of them got back to me.”

“Oh really? Which one.” This was the first time since Silver’s burial that James engaged in conversation with me, but his voice was still an unusual monotone, difficult to decipher emotionally.

“This arts and culture center in Brooklyn. For some community events position.” I clicked on the listing. “I don’t know. It sounds basically administrative, likescheduling, making itineraries, organizing files, stuff I did at the law library.”

“What’s the pay?”

“Fifty-five to fifty-nine thousand, depending on experience level.”

“So fifty-nine.”

“What? I have no experience.”

“You do, at the law library. You just said.”

I scoffed. What I did at the law library could hardly be considered experience, unless experience meant clicking buttons as quickly as you could in some archaic web platform and picturing ways to hurt yourself with office supplies.

“Congratulations, anyway. Baby’s first postgrad interview. Welcome to the rest of your life.” James laughed humorlessly. Disaffection didn’t suit him, it made me sad.

“The rest of my life,” I said.

“Yep.”

“Do you remember what you asked me on our first night at Holme?”

He shook his head.