The Cat's Meow by Emily Carmichael

Author:Emily Carmichael
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307418401
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

chapter 15

MCKENNA PULLED the Neon over to the curb a half-block away from her parents’ home in Evergreen, Colorado. She reached over and unfastened the door of Titi’s carrier, and the cat sprang up onto the passenger seat, propped her front paws on the door, and peered out the window. They had a good view of Mckenna’s childhood home from this vantage point—the spacious, sloping lawn, winter brown showing through patchy snow, the big porch with its impressive Georgian columns, the two-story brick house. Artfully placed shrubs and conifers didn’t soften the imposing facade, the sort of in-your-face “Don’t tread on my walkway unless you belong to the country club” look of the place.

“Can a house have an attitude?” Mckenna asked Titi.

Titi dropped down to the seat and yawned. “Dogs there?”

“In my mother’s house?” Mckenna laughed at the idea. Amazing how much she had recalled about her mother and father on the nine-hundred-mile drive, when she had nothing better to do than bury herself in memory. “No animal of any kind has ever set paws on my mother’s carpet. You’ll be lucky if you’re not sleeping in the car.”

“Kidding, right?”

“Don’t worry, if my mom’s that persnickety, we’ll find a motel.”

Mckenna sat in silence for a moment, gathering her courage. Yes, she had remembered some things, but who knew how much she still didn’t know about her home, her family, her childhood years? How did she explain to her parents that she was no longer the person they thought she was, the ruthlessly ambitious Harvard-educated attorney with a prestigious job and brilliant future?

Maybe she would be those things again in time. But right now she held down two low-wage jobs, lived in a thirty-year-old mobile home in the middle of nowhere, and carried on conversations with her cat. She wouldn’t fill them in on the last part, of course. Her mother likely wouldn’t even accept a cat as a houseguest, much less her daughter’s confidant.

“All during this visit,” she warned Titi, “you are to behave like a cat.”

“I am a cat.”

“You know what I mean. Just behave.”

All innocence, Titi replied, “Cats invented good manners.”

Mckenna rolled her eyes.

“Fishbelly face,” Titi observed. “Sick?”

Mckenna gritted her teeth. “Not sick. Just nervous.”

Titi scratched an ear, then gave Mckenna a chiding look. “Bad idea.”

“What’s a bad idea?”

“Parents. Kittens leave at eight weeks. Forever.”

Mckenna’s laugh had a sour note. “That only works for cats and puppies, Titi.”

“Good idea. Try?”

“Sorry, Titi, but human families are for life.”

“Too bad.”

“Yes, maybe. Too bad.” Too late for regrets, though. She had driven nine hundred miles, endured a motel room that smelled like stale cigarette smoke and heaven knew what else, and expended four entire tanks of gasoline to get here, so she had to walk up to that oak front door with its fancy cut-glass side panels and face her family. Her parents were expecting her, and if they knew she was sitting half a block away agonizing over a simple family visit, they surely would send for a therapist.

“Lie in the sun,” Titi advised.

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