Part 4
“Ten in the morning,” Ben said. “We leave here at nine-fifteen.”
Eli nodded as if Ben had given him a departure time at the terminal. He added Skipper’s food to the list on the refrigerator and drew a box beside each of the eleven days that remained. Ben did not tell him to stop counting.
Walter called twice that week. The first time, Eli stayed out of camera range and supplied Ben with questions written on index cards. Did Skipper like tuna? Why did he slap his water? How old was the collar? Walter answered each one without trying to persuade the boy to appear.
“The water thing started after I bought one of those bubbling fountains,” Walter said. “He hated it on sight. I returned the fountain. He kept the insult.”
Eli’s mouth twitched.
On the second call, he sat beside Ben. Walter showed them the blue ceramic bowl Skipper had used since he was young and the wide window ledge where he slept in winter. He also showed them his own new carrier, a bag of food, and a rubber mat he had put beneath the litter box so Mrs. Hanley could slide it out without lifting.
“You ready for him?” Eli asked.
Walter’s face went still. “I’ve been ready since I woke up. Being able is the part I’ve had to work on.”
That answer seemed to satisfy Eli.
The second Saturday in May arrived warm and clear. Claire checked Eli’s morning temperature and medications without the ceremony Ben had come to expect. He loaded the carrier into the back seat, securing it with the seat belt while Eli sat beside it.
Skipper complained for the first ten miles, then settled on the dispatch sweatshirt. Every so often Eli put two fingers against the mesh. He did not say the cat was his. He did not say this was unfair. His silence held both things.
Walter lived in a converted brick cannery on Harbor Street, less than a mile from the terminal. The building’s elevator was old enough to have a folding metal gate, but it worked. Mrs. Hanley, a compact woman with white curls and a canvas grocery bag, met them in the lobby.
“He’s checked the hallway four times,” she told Eli. “Claims it’s for exercise.”
Walter opened his apartment door before they knocked. He wore khaki pants, a clean flannel shirt, and the wary expression of a man hosting people in a home that had gone too long without company. A cane leaned against the wall within reach. Ben noticed it had not been put away for pride’s sake.
“Come in,” Walter said. “Please.”
The apartment smelled faintly of coffee and machine oil. On a shelf above the radiator stood small wooden ferry models, each painted with a different stripe along the hull. A worn blue armchair faced the harbor. One front leg was wrapped in sisal rope, and gray fur remained caught in the seam of the cushion despite Walter’s cleaning.
Eli saw it too. His hand tightened around the carrier handle.
Walter sat on the edge of the armchair, one hand braced beside him. “Open it whenever you’re ready.”
Eli looked at Ben. This was the place where Ben would once have reached down, worked the latch, and narrated every next step before anyone else could make a mistake. He kept his hands on his knees.
Eli opened the door.
Skipper remained inside for several seconds, smelling air that had changed but was not strange. Then he stepped onto the rug. He inspected Walter’s slippers, circled the base of the blue chair, and went directly to the kitchen.
“His bowl’s empty,” Eli said.
“I thought I’d let you fill it.”
Eli carried the food into the kitchen. Behind him, Walter lowered his fingers. Skipper sniffed them, rubbed one cheek along the knuckles, and gave a short, rusty chirp Ben had never heard at the Calder house.
Walter closed his eyes. His free hand gripped the chair hard enough to whiten the nails, but he did not pick the cat up. Skipper made another circle, then jumped into the blue chair and pressed his forehead beneath Walter’s palm.
No one spoke for a while.
When Eli returned, Skipper hopped down and walked to him. He leaned against the boy’s leg, leaving gray hair on his black jeans, then returned to the chair.
On Walter’s dining table lay Skipper’s veterinary records, the microchip information, and the county form ending the Calders’ temporary foster arrangement. The form offered two boxes: return to verified owner or voluntary transfer.
Walter poured coffee for the adults and apple juice for Eli. His hand shook enough that Claire quietly held the cup steady without taking the pitcher from him.
“I filled out most of it,” Walter said. “Left the important part blank.”
Ben looked at the two boxes. “Why?”
Walter watched Skipper knead the blue chair cushion. “Yesterday the home-health nurse asked who would take him if I landed back at Casco. Mrs. Hanley can check on him for a day or two, but she can’t keep him. I couldn’t give her your name without asking. Then I thought about your boy.”
“Mrs. Hanley has a key,” Ben said.
“She does now. She should’ve had one before. That’s on me.”
Walter rubbed at the pale hospital band mark still visible around his wrist. “I can feed him. I can clean up after him. The therapist says walking the hall is good for me, and Mrs. Hanley makes sure I do it. But if your boy needs him—”
“I do,” Eli said.
Walter looked at him.
“I need him,” Eli repeated. “But you do too.”
The old man picked up the pen. “That doesn’t decide where he lives, son.”
He checked the box marked voluntary transfer and pushed the form toward Ben.
For a moment Ben saw the simple ending he had wanted. Skipper in the mudroom doorway. Eli walking the hall. Claire pretending not to smile when the cat rejected another expensive bed. All he had to do was sign.
Then he looked at Walter’s apartment: the roped chair leg, the matching blue saucer under the water bowl, the shallow dip in the window cushion. Walter’s hand rested on the arm of the blue chair beside Skipper’s paw.
Ben turned the form sideways.
“If you had people who could get to him the next time you couldn’t,” he said, “which box would you check?”
Walter’s jaw moved once. “I don’t have those people.”
“I’m asking which box.”
Walter set the pen down. Skipper stretched one paw across the arm of the chair until it touched his sleeve.
“I’d bring him home,” he said.
Ben capped the pen and set it on the box marked returned to verified owner. “I won’t accept him because you’re afraid of the next ambulance.”
Walter stared at the form. Then he drew a line through his first mark, initialed the correction, and checked the other box. Ben signed beneath it as the temporary foster returning the cat.
Eli’s face crumpled. Ben felt the old reflex rise—the urge to explain, bargain, reverse the pen stroke before pain became danger. Instead he moved his chair closer and waited. Eli pressed both hands over his eyes. Claire rested a palm between his shoulder blades, and Skipper jumped down to investigate the sound of the chair legs.
After a minute, Eli lowered one hand and scratched beneath the collar, where the white fur began.
“Can I still see him?” he asked Walter.
“Yes. I don’t know what that looks like yet, but yes.”
Ben glanced at Claire. “Could we be his emergency people? Only if all four of us understand what that means.”
They made a simple chain. Mrs. Hanley would check on Skipper the first day. If Walter could not return, Ben or Claire would collect him. With Walter’s written permission, the clinic and microchip registry would list the Calders as backups. Eli could visit, but he would never be the automatic caregiver.
Walter listened without interrupting. When they finished, he pushed himself up and went to a small hook beside the apartment door. Two keys hung there. He removed the newer one.
“Mrs. Hanley has the first. I had this copy made yesterday,” he said.
He offered it to Eli. “Your parents keep it, but you can carry it home. Fair?”
Eli did not look at Ben for an answer. He closed his fingers around the key.
Before leaving, Walter signed the clinic authorization. He would confirm the backup number with the microchip company on Monday. Until the new tag arrived, Ben fastened a temporary one behind the old brass tag.
At the door, Eli knelt and put his forehead briefly against Skipper’s. The cat tolerated this for three seconds before wriggling free and trotting back to Walter’s chair.
Ben carried the empty carrier into the hall. Eli followed with the key in his pocket, and Claire walked beside him. As the elevator gate folded shut, Ben heard Skipper’s old tag tap once against the face of Walter’s watch…
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