But Harper was only half listening to him.
Renée had come to a stop ten paces from the truck and stood bent at the waist, holding her knuckles down so a long-haired cat with golden stripes could sniff at the back of her hand. The cat had come out of the grass with bits of dead leaf stuck in its fur and its tail in the air. He purred so loudly it sounded like someone had started up an electric sewing machine.
Nick had crawled out from under his piles of hoses to stare. He looked back at Allie with sudden excitement and began to gesture with his fingers. She came forward on all fours.
“He says that’s the cat he’s been feeding since last summer,” she said.
When Harper looked back, the big tom was in Renée’s arms. It narrowed its eyes in contentment. Renée had set the radio down in the dirt and was gently running her fist down the cat’s spine.
“This is my cat.” Renée looked dazed, as if someone had just woken her up from a deep sleep. “My cat that I let go last May. It’s Mr. Truffles. Well, Truffaut, actually, but Truffles to his friends.”
The Fireman hopped down off the running board. His face was stony. “You sure of that?”
“Of course I am. I think I know my own cat.”
“But he doesn’t have a collar or tags. You can’t be positive.”
Renée flushed. “He came right to me. He jumped into my arms.” When John didn’t speak, she added, “Why shouldn’t it be him? This is my neighborhood. I use to live right on this street, you know. A mile south of here, but still this street.”
“The cat stays,” he told her.
Renée opened her mouth to speak, caught herself, and stared at him—first with incomprehension, and then with a dawning look of acceptance.
“Of course,” she said. “It’s absurd to think—of course, you’re right.”
She rubbed her nose against the cat’s and set him gently in the dirt.
“No!” Allie cried. “What are you doing? We can take him.”
“That’s right. I can keep him with me,” Harper said.
She was thinking about the expression she had glimpsed on Renée’s face when she recognized her cat. It had been more than a look of pleasure—it was a flash of shock. Harper thought some part of Renée had given up on happiness—had left it behind in the tomb with Gilbert—and the possibility of delight had blindsided her. Nick, too, had already jumped down out of the truck and dropped to his knees in the dust, was carefully creeping toward it with an intent, almost mesmerized expression. The cat twined between Renée’s ankles and watched the boy with wary jade eyes.
“And if they look in the rear cupboards and discover him?” the Fireman asked.
“They’ll think a cat stowed away in your truck. They’ll laugh over it.”
“No. They’ll start digging around, is what they’ll do.”
“Let’s vote,” Harper said.
“No fucking vote! It isn’t safe. The cat stays.”
Harper said, “Mr. Rookwood, I have had my fill of people claiming the unique authority to decide what is and isn’t best for others. I tried marriage, and had five years of being told the things that made me feel like a human being were no good for me. I tried religion—the scared church of the holy sing-along, temple of the Bright—and got more of the same. We’re on to democracy now and we’re going to vote. Don’t pout, you get one, too.”
“Three cheers for the electoral process!” Allie cried.
The Fireman swept a hostile glare across her and her brother. “Most societies recognize that children are not well enough informed to participate in public debate.”
“Most children haven’t saved your scrawny and ungrateful ass from a public stoning. We vote. All of us. And I vote cat,” Harper said.
“I vote for a feline-free future,” the Fireman said, and stabbed a finger at Renée. “And so does she. Because unlike you, Renée Gilmonton is a woman of reason, logic, and caution, aren’t you, Renée?”
Renée wiped the back of her hand against a wet cheek. “He’s right. If anything happened to the kids because we brought the cat along, I couldn’t bear it. It’s an unconscionable risk. And besides I—I suppose it might not be my cat after all.”
“You are lying, Renée, and I see right through you,” Harper said. She turned her head and glared with a righteous fury at the two children. “How do you vote?”
“I vote cat,” Allie said.
Nick put his thumb in the air.
“You are both outvoted!” Harper cried. “Mr. Truffles comes with us!”
Renée shivered. “Harper. No. Really. You don’t—we can’t—”
“We can,” Harper said. “We will. Democracy, motherfuckers. Get used to it.”
Mr. Truffles rubbed his spine up against Renée’s ankle and looked at Harper with an expression that suggested the matter had never been in doubt.
11
Harper stretched out in the dark beside Renée with the cat nestled between them, in the space behind three rows of fire extinguishers. Allie and Nick had settled under the hoses in the other compartment. Harper’s face was buried in Mr. Truffle’s fur and with each inhalation she smelled the last nine months of his secret cat life: must, dust, grave dirt, basements and tall grass, beach and drainpipe, Dumpster and dandelions.
The truck droned and thudded. They were on South Street now, Harper could tell by their slow progress and all the swaying. There were a lot of curves on South Street. They hit a pothole and her teeth banged together.
“It used to be five hours to Machias. How long do you think it takes now?” Renée asked softly.
“We don’t know what the interstate is like. The fire last fall burned from Boothbay Harbor to the border. Thousands and thousands of acres. Who knows if we’ll be able to drive the whole way. If we have to walk some or most of it, it could take us—well, a long time.”
Mr. Truffles’s purrs echoed in the wooden cabinet, a rhythmic rattling that made Harper think of someone playing a washboard in a bluegrass band.
“But if the road is clear, we could be on the island tonight.”
“We don’t know how long they’ll need to process us. Or how often they send over the boats.”
“Wouldn’t it be something to take a shower in hot water?”
“That’s crazy talk. Next you’ll be daydreaming about food that doesn’t come from a can.”
“Have you slept with him?” Renée asked, out of the blue.
The fire truck shifted gears and began to accelerate. They were off South Street now and on Middle Road. The blacktop was newer under the tires, Harper could tell from the smoothness of the ride.
“No,” Harper said. “I mean—we’ve been in bed together, but we’ve only ever just held each other. His ribs. His bad arm.” She didn’t know how to explain about the other woman who was always in the room with them, the one in the flames. “More recently, I’ve been very pregnant.”
“I guess you can straighten that out when you’re on the island.” The fire truck rocked and clattered. “I wish Gil and I had that. I wish there had been a way—but the Mazz was always watching, always in the room with us. I know I’m not so much to look at. I mean, I’m fat and I’m almost fifty. But he had been in prison a long time, and—”
“Renée, you are adorably fuckable,” Harper said. “You would’ve rocked his world.”
Renée clapped a hand over her mouth and quivered helplessly.
The fire extinguishers clattered and rang, chiming against one another.
When Renée had control of herself again, she said, “You’ve kissed him, though? And used the L-word?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Gil never said it to me, so I never said it to him. I didn’t want to say it and have him feel like he was obliged. I wish I had now. Risked it, I mean. I don’t care if he said it back to me. I just wish he had heard it from me.”
“He knew,” Harper said.