Part 6
Two months later, Claire could tell whether an update came from Ruth or Tom before she read the name. Ruth sent photographs in batches, followed by messages explaining what had happened just outside the frame. Tom usually sent one picture and a sentence.
On a September afternoon, Ruth’s new video arrived while Claire was finishing a report at work. Dove sat on the broad windowsill, turning her head to follow an insect outside the glass. Her coat lay smooth along her back, and there was weight over the bones Claire remembered touching. Below her, Mist sprang at a patch of light and slid halfway beneath a chair.
Claire listened to the household sounds behind the video: a cupboard closing, Ruth telling Tom to move because he was blocking the light. Dove’s ears turned toward them and settled again. In the same batch, a photograph from tea showed her resting against the shoe of the neighbor who had once questioned Ruth’s choice, letting the woman stroke her head.
The follow-up visits had confirmed that her lungs were clear, though an unexpected knock could still send her looking for Mist. Ruth warned visitors to give her room at the door. Dove still disliked the carrier, too; Dana was helping them make veterinary visits less frightening.
Tom’s favorite picture showed Mist’s paw in the center of his palm, above the caption Supervisor. Another message described a nail that had vanished while he sorted his tools. He found it in his boot, with Mist sitting beside it, and had put the tools away and latched the box before sending the photograph.
“She gets into everything,” he wrote. “Her mother sleeps by my feet. I used to lie there thinking about the next day’s work. Now I listen to her until I drift off.”
“I’m glad you kept them together,” he added. Claire saved the words with the pictures, in the folder she opened on difficult days while the kettle heated.
Later that afternoon, Ruth called instead of writing. A large unfamiliar dog had slipped beneath a low section of the garden fence while the cats were outside with her. He went toward Mist, barking, but Dove reached the kitten before Ruth could.
“She’d been asleep on the porch chair,” Ruth said. “Then she was right between them.”
As Ruth described the arched back and raised fur, Claire remembered the gray body she had photographed in the alley. Dove growled, holding her place in front of Mist. The dog stopped, then backed toward the opening beneath the fence.
Only after he retreated could Ruth gather the kitten. Dove followed her indoors and spent the next half hour sniffing Mist, lying down, and getting up to check her again.
“They’re both fine,” Ruth said. “I’m keeping them inside. Tom’s fixing the gap.”
Claire stayed on the line while Ruth told her where each cat was sitting. She was relieved Dove had not had to fight, but the thought of that gap in the fence stayed with her. She listened for a catch in Ruth’s voice and heard, instead, Tom calling that he had found a piece of mesh to fit. When they hung up, Claire put the phone beside her unfinished report and returned to the figures.
That evening, Claire took her usual route toward the subway. There had been a brief shower, and the sidewalk held the cooling smell of wet brick. At the entrance to the alley, she stopped.
The dumpster was in the same place. Paint was still flaking from the wall, and water had collected in the depression beside the narrow dry patch. A wet maple leaf lay where the kittens had been.
Claire stood without taking out any food. She had been through the alley since the rescue, but she still found herself looking first at that corner, measuring it against the width of a cat’s body.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
Ruth had sent a photograph of Tom asleep in his chair. Dove lay along his chest with her head near his shoulder, her tail curved around his forearm. Mist was curled at his feet. One of Tom’s slippers had come off, and the television remote was balanced where it would eventually fall.
Claire enlarged the picture. The long face was relaxed against the faded shirt, and Tom’s hand rested open beside it.
Earlier that week, Dana had handed Claire the empty carrier to put away after collecting it from the Beckers. The garage was busy again. Three newly abandoned cats had come in, one limping, another too frightened to let Dana close enough to change his bedding without a fuss.
Claire had held a fresh towel while Dana worked. At the door, Dana wiped the carrier handle and said she could stand the late nights better when she knew some of the animals were sleeping somewhere else at last.
Now Claire slid the phone back into her pocket and turned toward the station. A young couple passed the alley, absorbed in something they were laughing about. She let them pass and walked on, remembering the warm pressure of Dove’s forehead against her palm.
On the train, she opened the photograph again before the doors closed. In the next short clip, taken just after it, Dove woke enough to stretch one foreleg down Tom’s shirt. Mist climbed beside her, turned twice, and fitted herself against her mother’s side.
Claire held the phone steady until the small gray head disappeared into the larger curve of fur.