Blood & Water by Katie O'Rourke

Author:Katie O'Rourke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: contemporary fiction, women's fiction, secrets, family, sagas
Publisher: Brown House Books
Published: 2017-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

Tim: Sunday

When I get up, Lola’s waiting for me in the kitchen, standing over her empty food dish with a silent accusation. Now that she sees me, she begins her constant meowing, dancing at my feet as I prepare her breakfast, obviously not fast enough. She doesn’t shut up until I set the dish on the tile.

Once she’s satisfied, I begin to make my coffee. I’ve started my day this way for the last sixteen years, minus the ten months I was on my ride around the world. Finding someone to watch Lola while I was away was one of the trickiest parts of planning that trip. It wasn’t like I was a complete loner, but I didn’t have a lot of the type of friends you can ask that sort of favor from.

I ended up hiring a vet tech who worked at the place I’d taken Lola since she was a kitten. I asked if she had any ideas and she volunteered. I might have thought she was hitting on me, but she had an equality tattoo on the inside of her wrist and she gave off a certain vibe. I didn’t know her well, but figured Lola couldn’t do much better than a professional animal lover so I accepted immediately and gave notice to my employer. He let me know he wouldn’t be holding my job while I was gone. I hadn’t expected he would. I put a few things in storage, got Renee to pick up Lola (since I didn’t have a car) and started west.

I felt pretty cocky when I left, like I was setting off on a journey that would be meaningful and intense and life-altering. And it was. I was in a hotel in Egypt the night Mubarak stepped down and the streets erupted in celebratory gun fire. I was smoking in the parking lot with a security guard who liked to bum American cigarettes. I’d been there for weeks while I waited for a visa and we’d struck up a sort of friendship. His English was better than my Arabic and I was surprised how we muddled through. Bakari laughed at me as I ducked behind a car when the gunshots started. Then we stayed up late into the night as he spoke of his fragile hopes for democracy. He was young enough that he couldn’t remember a time when his country had any other leader. I tried to imagine thirty years of Nixon or Reagan or Clinton. I can complain all day about the United States government, but the fact that I struggled in that particular attempt makes me lucky.

Once my paperwork came through, I left Bakari a pack of Marlboros and my email address and tried to fit in as many miles before sundown as I could, just ready to be done. I blew past the pyramids and got on a boat across the Mediteranean, struck by how insignificant it was, how insignificant I was. By the end, I was worn out and homesick, but I wasn’t sure what for.

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