Part 4
For four days, people shared the photograph and wished them luck. Claire received messages praising the idea, messages saying someone would surely come along, and one asking whether Mist could go alone. She checked each new notification with the same small intake of breath.
At the garage, nothing had changed.
Dove still ate from the same bowl. Mist still tried to follow her mother into the litter pan. On the third evening, Claire watched the kitten climb a little way up the pen and felt the waiting begin to look selfish.
“What if I’m keeping her from something good?” she asked.
Dana was scraping dried food from the rim of a dish. She continued until the edge was clean, then put it in the washing tub.
“Let’s give it another week.”
“You thought it would be difficult.”
“It is difficult. It hasn’t been very long.”
Claire nodded, though she had been counting in a different unit: every person who might have taken a kitten and had not wanted a mother. When she left, she checked the phone before she had reached the garage door.
The email arrived at work on the fourth day. Its subject was simply Dove and Mist.
Claire almost opened it in the preview pane, expecting another question about the kitten. Instead, she clicked through and read the whole message.
My name is Ruth Becker. My husband, Tom, and I keep coming back to your post. Our children are grown and living elsewhere, and it’s just us in our house in Bucks County now. We’ve never had cats, so there are things we would need to learn. But we aren’t asking you to separate them. We would like to meet both.
Claire read the sentence about not separating them a second time. Then she called Dana from the stairwell, with the heavy office door resting against her shoulder.
“Somebody wants them,” she said.
“Both?”
“Both. They’re outside the city. A house in Bucks County.”
“Send me the email. We’ll talk to them.”
Dana’s caution steadied her. Claire forwarded it before going back to her desk, and throughout the afternoon she resisted telling everyone within reach. They had an inquiry. She wanted it to become something she could count on.
Ruth answered the practical questions promptly. She and Tom understood that two cats meant two animals needing care, expenses, and patience, not one purchase with a kitten included. They were willing to have a home visit. Two days later, Claire drove north out of Philadelphia with Dana’s questions written beside her own.
The Becker house stood on a quiet road among older trees. It was comfortable rather than grand, with a gate that needed a firm lift before it would swing open. Tom came down the path to help her with it.
“Ruth’s been watching for you,” he said. “I’ve told her to sit down twice. Hasn’t worked yet.”
His hands were broad, the nails worn short. Inside, there were books beside a reading chair and a worn place on the arm where someone’s hand must have rested for years. Claire noticed a new scratching post standing a little too neatly beside the couch.
Ruth came out of the kitchen carrying a tray she hadn’t needed. “Would you like tea? Or coffee? I put both on because I didn’t know.”
“Tea’s fine.”
“Good. The coffee might be terrible.”
Claire smiled, and Ruth put down the tray with visible relief. The first few minutes were about the drive and where Claire had parked. Then Ruth glanced at the cat beds near the window.
“Did we get the wrong size?”
They had bought a large bed and a smaller one, both with edges high enough to lean against. Claire thought of Mist climbing over her mother to find the exact spot she wanted.
“I think they’ll use whatever suits them,” she said. “It may be the same bed.”
Tom moved the smaller bed closer to the larger one.
They showed her the quiet room where the cats could begin, the places they had put food and litter supplies, and the screens Tom had checked. Claire looked without rushing. She made herself ask about doors, trips away, and what they would do if Dove hid for days.
“Let her hide,” Ruth said, then glanced at Tom. “That’s what we read. As long as she’s eating and all right. We wouldn’t pull her out.”
“Dana will talk you through it,” Claire said. “And you’ll have the clinic’s instructions.”
At the kitchen table, Tom opened a notebook. He had written down the number of the nearest emergency veterinary hospital, questions about vaccinations, and the food recommended during Dove’s recovery. Some of his questions were very basic. Claire liked that he asked them anyway.
“I’ve never cleaned a cat’s ears,” he said. “Do they need that done?”
“Only if the vet tells you to. Dana can show you what to watch for.”
He crossed something out, carefully, without appearing embarrassed.
Ruth reached for her tea. “Our neighbor saw the picture. She said, ‘Why would you choose that one?’ As if we’d picked out a lamp that didn’t match.”
“What did you say?”
“That I liked her.”
Ruth looked toward the empty beds. “It came out sharper than I meant. She’s usually a kind woman. She just wouldn’t stop talking about the face.”
Claire told them how Dove watched a person before approaching, how little she liked having a hand arrive suddenly above her head. Mist was less restrained. She would try to help with anything within reach.
They talked for more than an hour. Toward the end, Tom closed the notebook but kept his palm on its cover.
“I worked construction most of my life,” he said. “Still do some. When I saw that first picture, the way she was holding those kittens against her—” He stopped and looked at Ruth. “I’ve come home looking pretty used up myself.”
Ruth laid two fingers against the back of his hand. Tom didn’t add anything for a moment.
“I don’t need her to be friendly on Saturday,” he said finally. “I’d just like her to have somewhere she can stop watching the door.”
Claire looked once more around the room. She had been trying to find the question whose answer would make her certain. Now she checked what she could check, wrote down what Dana needed to know, and accepted that the rest would have to be learned by living with them.
That evening, she told Dana she wanted to go ahead. She sat beside the pen before leaving and told Dove and Mist they would be making the trip on Saturday, softly enough that neither stopped grooming.
On Saturday morning, the wool blanket Claire had carried to the alley lay inside the big carrier again. Dana set it near the pen, leaving the door open. Claire knelt to let Dove smell her hand before they began.
Dove backed into the far corner, putting Mist behind her.
Claire stopped moving. The cat’s ears flattened, her tail struck the bedding, and a low growl came from the throat Claire had heard purring against her palm.
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