Part 4
Tess was on her feet before she was fully awake. Paul steadied her while she found her shoes, and they reached the kitchen as Audrey came in from the yard.
On the screen, the mother circled the enclosure. Briar had come out of the shelter and was crouched against the nearest wall, her ears forward. A low call came through the speaker, followed by the thin reply Paul had heard from the ditch.
Audrey moved the phone closer without enlarging the image. She wanted to see the whole enclosure, she said, including the direction the mother might leave.
They watched the adult approach. Briar pressed her nose close to the wire; the mother sniffed, moved along the wall, and returned. The other three kittens were now visible, one sitting in the grass while the other two investigated the anchor stakes.
“That’s encouraging,” Audrey said.
Paul kept waiting for her to say something more certain. When she finally decided they could open the gate, her voice remained as measured as it had been beside the drain.
“We go behind the shed. Quietly. Once it’s open, we stay there.”
They left through the back door and crossed to the shed, keeping its wall between themselves and the enclosure. Audrey checked the live picture again before putting the release handle in Paul’s hand. He had helped test it and knew how little effort it required.
The mother turned her head toward the creek. For a moment he could see the kitten back in the ditch, foot twisted, while his own wire held her there.
“If she comes out limping?”
“We watch,” Audrey said. “I’ll tell you if there’s a reason to intervene.”
Tess stood close enough that her sleeve touched his. She didn’t take the handle or tell him it would be all right.
He pulled steadily until Audrey said the gate was clear.
On the screen, its opening made a dark rectangle beside the shelter, and for several seconds Briar did nothing. Then she stepped out, placed the left hind foot carefully, and shifted her weight onto it before moving toward the mother.
The adult bent to smell her head. Briar pushed beneath her chin, unbalancing herself in her hurry, and the mother licked once across the pale patch behind her ear.
Tess caught Paul’s wrist.
He kept the handle steady, though the gate was already secured open.
One of the larger kittens crowded between them. Briar struck at its shoulder, missed, and followed when it bounced away. Her mother moved toward the creek with the four young animals gathering unevenly behind her.
Paul watched the smallest one cross a patch of exposed ground. There was a hitch in her stride, slight but visible; then she climbed over a root and vanished into the same cover as the others.
He didn’t go after her.
When Tess’s hand loosened, he turned his wrist and held her fingers for a moment before letting Audrey take the release handle.
They remained behind the shed until Audrey said they could return to the house. Inside, Tess played the last clip once more, stopping at the moment the mother lowered her head.
Before Audrey left, Tess asked for a copy of the full recording, including the long stretch before anything happened. Then she moved her chair so Paul could sit beside her and see the screen.
The roof was replaced that summer. Joel worked the upper block in August, using the county-road entrance, and the machines stayed out of the lower meadow. Paul heard them from the kitchen for several days while he sorted what he could afford to buy for the porch.
He and Tess rebuilt the steps on the two weekends she’d set aside in the fall. They disagreed about the width of the handrail and had to return one order of lumber.
Three summers later, they were sanding that railing when a bobcat appeared beneath the fallen chestnut.
Paul saw her first, while Tess was beside the porch outlet trying to untangle an extension cord. He rested one hand on the railing.
“Tess,” he said softly. “Down by your mother’s log.”
She set the cord down and reached inside the porch door for the binoculars. They stood together at the corner of the porch, taking turns watching the female step into the grass with two kittens following her.
A pale spot caught the light behind her right ear. When she crossed the uneven ground, one hind foot landed a little stiffly.
There had been other sightings on the cameras, sometimes months apart. Audrey had said the photographs were consistent with the rescued female, but she couldn’t confirm an identity from a pale patch and a gait. Paul had put a question mark beside Briar’s name in the notebook.
Now one of the kittens discovered the drain. It crouched at the smooth opening, thrust a paw inside, and jumped sideways at the echo. Its sibling collided with it, and the two rolled down the shallow bank into the grass.
The mother waited until they found their feet. Then she crossed toward the chestnut, pausing once to look at the house.
“Do you think it’s her?” Tess whispered.
“I hope so.”
She nodded and stayed beside him until the last kitten disappeared under the laurel. Afterward, she asked him to bring the porch chairs around to that corner.
Paul unplugged the sander, carried out the chairs, and set hers where the railing wouldn’t block the meadow. Tess moved his a few inches so he could stretch his bad knee.
They sat while the morning shade reached the drain. Behind them, on the porch, the extension cord lay where she’d left it.