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“There’s cats out there,” my grandfather says, looking out the window as he washes a coffee cup in the sink. “In the barn.”
Philip sets down a bag of groceries carefully. His expression is strange.
“Feral,” says Grandad, using a fork to pry an ancient piece of toast out of the old toaster, and tossing it into the trash bag he hooked over the basement doorknob.
I walk over to where he’s standing and peer out the window. I can see them, tiny liquid shapes. A tabby jumps atop a rusted can of paint, while a white cat sits in a patch of long weeds, just the end of its tail twitching. She looks like the cat from my dream. “You think they’ve been living here long?”
My grandfather shakes his head.
“I bet they were pets. They look like pets.”
Grandad grunts.
“Maybe I should bring them some food,” I say.
“Put it in a trap,” says Philip. “Better catch them before they breed out of control.”
After Philip leaves, I put out food anyway—a can of tuna they won’t come near while I’m standing there, but fight over when I stand at the bottom of the driveway. I count five cats—the white one, two tabbies that I have a hard time telling apart, a fluffy black cat with a spot of white under its chin, and a runty butterscotch one.
Me and Grandad spend the rest of the morning grimly cleaning the kitchen, switching out our regular gloves for rubber. We throw out a pile of rusty forks, a sieve, and some pans. We pull up some linoleum and discover a nest of roaches that scatter so quickly that, despite stomping after them, most get away. I call Sam after lunch, but Johan answers his cell. Sam, apparently, is busy testing to see if the seniors control “the airspace above senior grass.” This experiment takes the form of holding one foot slightly above the restricted ground until someone tries to punch him in the head. I say I’ll call back.
“Who you phoning?” my grandfather asks, wiping his face with his T-shirt.
“No one.”
“Good thing,” he says, “since we got so much work to do.”
I straddle one of the kitchen chairs and rest my chin on the back frame. “You think there’s something wrong with me, or what?”
“Here’s what I think: I’m cleaning out this house. I’m not young, so you’re supposed to help. You don’t want to be some kind of useless pretty boy.”
I laugh. “I might be young, but I wasn’t born yesterday. That’s no answer.”
“If you’re so smart, you tell me what’s going on.” He grins after he says it, like verbal wrangling is his idea of fun. Being with him makes me think of being a kid, running around his yard in Carney, safe and free for the summer. He didn’t need us to help him chat up a mark or shove some stolen item down our pants. He made us mow the lawn instead.
I decide I’ll try a different tactic to show him I’m paying attention. “What’s going on? I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but there’s definitely something wrong with Maura.”
He stops grinning. “What do you mean?”
“Did you see her? She looks terrible. And she thinks she’s hearing music. And I heard you say that Philip was working her.”
Grandad shakes his head and dumps his sweaty shirt on the table. “He’s not—”
“Oh, come on,” I say. “I saw her. Do you know what she said to me?”
He opens his mouth, but there’s a banging before he can speak, and we both turn. Audrey’s face is framed in the dirty glass of the back door. She frowns, as though sure she’s in the wrong place, but then she twists the knob and pushes the door hard enough to unstick it.
“How did you find me?” I ask, shock making me as cold-sounding as I ever hoped to be.
“All our addresses are printed in the student directory,” she says, shaking her head like I’m a total idiot.
“Right,” I say, because I am a total idiot. “Sorry. Come in. Thanks for—”
“Did they kick you out?” She puts one blue-gloved hand on her hip. She’s talking to me, but she’s staring at the piles of papers and ashtrays, mannequin hands and tea strainers that litter the countertops.
“For now,” I say, willing my voice not to crack. I thought I was familiar with the sick feeling of missing someone, of missing Audrey, but right now I realize how much more I’ll miss her if I can’t see her every day in class or sitting on the grass in the quad. All of a sudden I don’t care about the proper amount of ignoring. “Come into the living room.”
“I’m his grandfather.” Grandad holds out his left hand. The rubber glove hangs limply where his fingers are missing. I’m just glad she can’t see the stumps. Nothing but death-magic rotted flesh.
