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“Alanna!” Layla gasped.
“Oh my God, she’s just like you described,” Everly said, delighted.
Alanna continued. “I’m in town for a week or two helping my mom, and I decided to adopt a cat. And, well, she’s the worst. We’re talking hell demon territory here.”
Everly laughed. “A lot of new pet parents say that. I’m sure your cat isn’t that bad.”
“She adopted Petunia,” Layla murmured.
“PETUNIA? Lord have mercy on your soul!” Everly cried while frantically making the sign of the cross over her chest. “What sadistic freak allowed you to adopt Petunia?”
After a short, awkward silence, Layla raised a hand.
“LAYLA!” Everly pegged Alanna’s sister with an accusing glare.
“It’s not her fault,” Alanna admitted. “I forced her to.”
Everly shook her head. “Val made us swear not to adopt out Petunia. It was practically a blood oath.”
“You don’t know Alanna,” Layla responded miserably. “She can break me like a twig.”
“Thank you.” Alanna brightened at the compliment.
“Oh my God, tell me about this cat.” Tess leaned forward, solo cup in one hand, brownie in the other. “I’m already starting to feel better about my situation.”
“So glad to be at your service,” Alanna said. She sighed. “Petunia is entrenched under the bed all day. If I come near her, she growls, hisses, and scratches. The litter box is a suggestion. She shreds everything and seems to delight in breaking my shit. Also, I’m pretty sure she’s planning to sacrifice me one night to her evil gods. I can’t prove it, mind you, but I see it in her eyes.”
The room went quiet. Then Willow giggled. Tess started coughing out bits of brownie. Layla began to laugh, and then Everly joined in. Alanna couldn’t help herself. Laughter pealed out of her. It felt so good to laugh. Somehow, this group of strange, wonderful women helped her forget the anvil of anxiety sitting on her chest.
“Alright,” Everly finally managed to wheeze after minutes of unrestrained laughter. “Layla and I are gonna help all of you with your cat issues.” She gave Alanna a doleful look. “As for Petunia, we’ll do our best, but no promises.”
Ch. 15 Alanna
“Thisispointless,”Alannagroaned, letting her head drop back against the edge of the mattress. She and her mother had been sitting on the floor of her bedroom for 20 minutes just “being” with Petunia.
She needs to get used to your presence and understand you’re not a threat,Everly had told her two days ago at the Crazy Cat Ladies Club meeting. Under no circumstances, save for an emergency, was Alanna to attempt to extract Petunia from beneath the bed.She’ll come out when she feels safe,sayeth Everly, almighty cat whisperer.
Next to Alanna, her mother sat with her legs crossed, a cup of tea at her side. Wisps of silver-blonde hair escaped her messy ponytail, and she tucked them behind her ears as she began to hum a song. Alanna recognized the lullaby.
“You used to sing that song to us whenever Layla was afraid of the dark,” she mused.
Her mother smiled and nodded, her blue eyes staring into the past. “I was just thinking about the time Layla found that injured bird and brought it home. Remember that?” She placed a hand on Alanna’s knee. “We put it in a shoebox, and it chirped non-stop all week.”
Alanna snorted. Yes, she remembered the bird and their “home,” a silver, two-door Saturn with a rusted bumper, whining timing belt, and nearly 200,000 miles on the gauge. Each night, Alanna, aged 10, had curled uncomfortably in the backseat while her mother reclined the passenger seat and cradled six-year-old Layla on her chest.
“That wasn’t a home,” she said to her mother. Even after all these years, she still startled at any noise in the night: some deep, inner part of her brain always expecting the sharp rap of a police officer’s flashlight on the window.
Her mother’s hand lifted from Alanna’s knee. “It was the best I could do,” she said, her voice quiet.
Alanna sighed. “I know.” She shouldn’t have brought up the car. Why couldn’t she let go of the past, forgive and forget, like Layla seemed to do so easily?
She stared at her mother’s hands, noticing the blue ridged veins mapping through pale skin, the swollen knuckles, and the brace on her mom’s right wrist. Yes, her mother had done her best. Those hands had spent Alanna’s childhood serving dishes and cleaning tables at a diner that closed a few years ago. Those hands had cleaned bathrooms and washed clothes in other people’s houses for a little extra pocket change.
But the world was a cruel, unfair place. In spite of all her mother’s hard work, the money she earned never seemed to stretch far enough to protect their small, vulnerable family. And it wasn’t like their deadbeat dad had ever managed to make a single child support payment in his miserable life. Alanna’s earliest memories included a succession of homeless shelters. Then the Saturn, followed by a series of small, dank apartments with paper-thin walls and cheap, finicky appliances.
“Remember the Cave of Secrets?” her mother asked.
Alanna turned her head and met a pair of eyes identical in color to her own. “The blanket fort?”
