AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nothing. I don’t know. She looks hungry.”
“You going to let all of them in here?” Grandad asks. “I bet they’re all hungry.”
I grin. “I promise no more than one at a time.”
“This is not why I bought those traps.”
“I know,” I say. “You bought the traps so we can catch all the cats, drop them off in a field ten miles from here, and take bets on which one comes back first.”
He shakes his head. “You better get back to cleaning, smart-ass.”
“I have that doctor’s appointment with—,” I say.
“I remember. Let’s see how much you can get done before you have to leave.”
Shrugging, I go into the living room with a bunch of flat boxes and packing tape. I build the boxes and drag in the trash can from out back. Then I start going through the piles.
The cat watches me with shining eyes.
Circulars advertising charms and an old fur muff that looks like it has mange go in the trash can. Paperbacks go back onto shelves unless they look like something I want to read or the pages look too crumbly. A basket of leather gloves, some of them stuck together from being too close to a heating vent, goes into the trash as well.
No matter how much I throw away, there’s always more. Piles slide into one another and confuse me about where I was clearing last. There are dozens of wadded-up plastic bags, one with a pair of earrings and the receipt still attached, others holding a random swatch of cloth or the crust of a sandwich.
There are screwdrivers, nuts and bolts, my fifth-grade report card, the caboose from a toy train, rolls of PAID stickers, magnets from Ohio, three vases with dried flowers in them and one vase overstuffed with plastic flowers, a cardboard box of broken ornaments, a sticky mess of something dark and melted covering an ancient radio.
As I pick up a dust-covered dehumidifier, a box full of photographs spills across the floor.
They’re black-and-white pinups. The woman in them is wearing wrist-length summer gloves, a vintage corset, and nylon panties. Her hair’s styled like Bettie Page’s and she’s kneeling on a couch, smiling at the person taking the pictures, a man whose fingers show up in one of the pictures wearing an expensive-looking wedding ring over his black gloves. I know the woman in the pictures.
Mom looks pretty good.
* * *
The first time I realized I had a talent for crime was after Mom took me out—just me—for a cherry slushy. It was a scorching summer day and the leather seat in her car was hot from the sun, burning the backs of my legs just slightly unpleasantly. My mouth had turned bright red when we pulled into a gas station and then around back, like Mom was going to put air in the tires.
“See that house?” she asked me. She was pointing to a ranch-style place with white aluminum siding and black shutters.
“I want you to go through that window in the back by the stairs. Just shimmy on in and grab the manila envelope off the desk.”
I must have stared at Mom like I didn’t understand her.
“It’s a game, Cassel. Do it as fast as you can and I’ll time you. Here, give me your drink.”
I guess I knew it wasn’t a game, but I ran anyway and I boosted myself up on the water spigot and poured through the window with the boneless grace of little kids. The manila envelope was right where Mom’d said it would be. Nearby, piles of paper rested under coffee cups stuffed with pens and rulers and spoons. There was a little glass cat on the desk with what looked like glittering gold inside it. The air-conditioning made the sweat dry on my arms and back as I held the sculpture up to the light. I tucked the cat into my pocket.
When I brought the envelope back to her, she was sucking on my slushy.
“Here,” I said.
She smiled. Her mouth was bright red too. “Good work, sweetie.” And I realized that the reason she had taken me instead of my brothers was just that I was the smallest, but it didn’t bother me, because I also realized that I could be useful. That I didn’t need to be a worker to be useful. That I could be good at things, better than they were, even.
That knowledge sang through my veins like adrenaline.
Maybe I was seven. I’m not sure. It was before Lila.
I never told anyone about the cat.
* * *
