Part 5
Pilot heard the car before Dan did.
At 10:07 Saturday morning, the cat lifted his head from the living-room rug and went to the front window. A faded green sedan stopped at the curb. Denise Carver got out first, then walked around to help Walter from the passenger side.
Eli stood behind the couch, gripping its back with both hands. Rachel had explained that Walter might take Pilot home. Dan had repeated that loving an animal did not make the animal theirs. Eli had nodded through every careful sentence and eaten almost nothing since breakfast.
Walter came up the walk with a cane. Nearly six weeks had passed since his collapse, but illness still showed in the looseness of his clothes and the pause he took at the bottom step. Denise carried an empty soft-sided pet carrier behind him.
That carrier made the visit real.
Dan opened the door. Walter stepped into the entryway and looked past him. “Pilot?”
The cat approached slowly, nose lifted. He stopped several feet away and studied the man’s face. Walter lowered himself onto the bench by the door, wincing as he bent, and held out one unsteady hand.
“It’s me, old friend.”
Pilot crossed the remaining distance. He sniffed Walter’s shoes, then his fingertips. A second later he pushed his white face hard into the man’s palm. Walter gave a broken laugh, and Pilot climbed halfway onto his knees, purring so loudly that everyone in the entryway could hear it.
Eli turned his face into the couch cushion.
For several minutes Walter touched the cat as if relearning him: the notch in his left ear, the thick fur behind his jaw, the white paw he disliked anyone holding. Pilot pressed against his chest, then circled his cane and rubbed along both pant legs.
“You remember,” Walter whispered.
Behind the couch, Eli’s breaths had shortened, and his fingers were digging into the upholstery. Rachel moved toward him. Before she reached the couch, Pilot dropped from Walter’s lap and went to the boy.
He rose on his hind legs, put both front paws against the cushion, and waited. Eli sat on the floor beside him. The cat settled against his thigh, still watching Walter.
Walter looked at the empty place on his knees. “He does that when the boy’s heart acts up?”
“When Eli gets scared,” Rachel said. “Sometimes the rhythm is a medical problem. Sometimes fear makes a small problem feel enormous. Pilot helps him get through the second part.”
Eli kept one hand on the cat. “He doesn’t fix it,” he said, as if defending Pilot from an accusation. “He just stays.”
Walter nodded. “That’s always been his best trick.”
They moved to the kitchen, where Rachel had made coffee and put out more food than four adults and one nervous child could eat. Denise stayed long enough to make certain Walter was steady, then left her number and promised to return by noon.
The soft carrier remained near the front door.
Walter asked about Eli’s illness without pretending to understand it. Eli answered when he wanted and let his parents answer when he did not. After a while, he brought out the model lighthouse. Walter examined its tiny wiring and showed him why the bulb flickered when he touched the switch.
“I used to repair electrical systems at the shipyard,” he said. “Your circuit is fine. This connection isn’t.”
Eli watched him bend the copper lead. “Can you fix it?”
“We can fix this part.” Walter looked at Dan before adding, “That’s the honest answer with most things.”
When the light finally held, a warm white beam turned slowly across the kitchen wall. Pilot tracked it once, decided it was beneath him, and stretched between Walter’s chair and Eli’s.
At eleven thirty, Walter closed the model’s battery compartment and folded his hands around his coffee mug. “I came here planning to take him,” he said. “Denise helped me clean the house. My doctor says I’m not supposed to lift more than ten pounds yet, so she would have handled the carrier until I could.”
Dan glanced at the carrier. “If that’s what you want, we’ll help.”
“It was what I wanted.” Walter watched Pilot’s tail move across Eli’s sock. “Then I walked in.”
Eli’s chin trembled, but his voice remained clear. “You can take him. He waited for you first. I don’t want him to think you left again.”
Rachel pressed her lips together. Dan looked down at the table, giving his son the privacy of not being watched too closely.
Walter reached across and placed one hand near Eli’s, not touching it until the boy turned his palm over. “I spent weeks afraid somebody had decided what was best without knowing me,” he said. “I won’t do that to you. And I won’t do it to him.”
He proposed something smaller than a final answer. Pilot would remain with the Mercers while Walter finished cardiac rehabilitation. Walter would visit twice a week if his strength allowed. When he could safely live alone again, they would decide together where Pilot should spend most of his time.
“The chip registration and adoption records are still in my name,” Walter said. “I’ll sign a foster authorization so there’s no confusion at the vet. His bills are my responsibility.”
“We can pay for his food,” Dan said.
“I’m sure you can. That isn’t the point.” A little of the engineer’s firmness returned to Walter’s voice. “I need to do my part.”
Walter signed the authorization at the kitchen table before Denise returned. It gave the temporary arrangement clear terms without pretending the final decision had been made.
When Denise’s car pulled up, Walter knelt as far as his healing body allowed and pressed his forehead briefly to Pilot’s. Then he stood and looked at Dan, Rachel, and Eli in turn.
“One condition,” he said. “If Pilot has two homes for a while, don’t make me a guest who comes only to see the cat…”
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