After
Believe it or not, they find the damn cat. The poor little guy was hiding out in some shed behind the cabin, freezing his little ass to the verge of death. There wasn’t a thing to eat so he was quite taken with the Kibbles ’n Bits the cops brought. But he sure as hell didn’t like their cage, or so they said, and fought tooth and nail to get out of it before they fastened the lock. The feline took a turbo prop down to Minneapolis, then a commercial airliner into O’Hare. Little guy gets around more than me! I picked him up this morning and took him over to the Dennetts when—lo and behold—I find out Eve and Mia have moved out.
I make the jaunt to Wrigleyville and surprise the women at 10:00 a.m. with a dozen donuts, café mochas and a malnourished tabby cat. They’re both in their pajamas, watching TV.
I catch the door as someone is leaving so I don’t have to wait to be buzzed in. I like the surprise of it.
“Good morning,” I say when Mia opens the door.
She wasn’t expecting me. Eve rises from the couch and pats at her untidy hair. “Gabe,” she says. She pulls on her robe to make sure nothing is exposed.
I attempt to leave the cat in the hall but so help me, all it takes is a “thank you” from Mia, in response to my “I brought some donuts and coffee,” and the cat goes absolutely berserk, clawing at the bars of the cage and making noises I’ve never heard a cat make before. So much for my grand entrance.
Eve turns white. “What is that noise?” she asks and so I bring the little guy in and close the door.
According to research, people who live with animals have decreased anxiety and lower blood pressure. They have lower cholesterol. They are more relaxed and less stressed and are, overall, in better health. Unless of course you have a dog who pees uncontrollably wherever it wishes or eats your furniture to shreds.
“What are you doing with that cat?” Eve asks. She’s clearly at a loss and thinks I’m off my rocker.
“This little guy?” I ask. I play dumb. I squat down and open the cage and take the cat into my arms. He claws me with his back claws. Shit! “I’m watching him for a friend of mine. I hope you don’t mind. Is anyone allergic to cats?” I ask, setting him on the ground and standing to meet Mia in the eye.
The fur-ball jaunts over to her and does about a thousand figure eights around her legs. He’s meowing. His insides purr.
Eve laughs. She runs a hand through her hair. “Looks like you have a friend, Mia,” she says.
The girl is muttering something under her breath, as if trying a new word on for size before she blurts it out and astounds us all. She lets that cat grope her for I don’t know how long as we listen to Eve go on and on about how taken the little guy is with Mia’s feet.
“What’s that you said?” I ask, stepping forward as she leans down and scoops the cat into her arms. He doesn’t scratch her. They nuzzle noses and he bumps into her face with his head.
“I always told her she should get a cat,” Eve continues to babble.
“Mia?” I say.
She looks at me with tears in her eyes. She knows that I know and that I did this for a reason. “Canoe,” she whispers to me. “I said Canoe.”
“Canoe?”
“It’s his name.”
What ever happened to Max or Fido? Canoe? What kind of name is that?
“Mia, honey...” Eve comes to her side, aware, for the first time, that something is happening here. “Whose name is Canoe?” she asks. Her voice is dumbed down, as if she’s talking to a mentally challenged child. She’s certain Mia is talking gibberish, a side effect of the ASD. Except this is the first time I’ve ever seen Mia say something that makes sense.
“Eve,” I say, ever so gently prying her hand off Mia’s arm. I reach into my coat pocket and pull out the fax I sent to the cops in Grand Marais and unfold it to reveal a perfectly sketched image of little Canoe. “This,” I say, holding it out to her, “is Canoe.”
“Then he isn’t...”
“There was a shed,” Mia is saying. She doesn’t look at us. Her eyes are lost on the cat. Eve takes the drawing from my hand. She knows now. She’s seen the sketchbook, every last image down to the drawing of Colin Thatcher that she told me kept her awake at night. But she had forgotten the cat. Eve sinks into the couch. “There was a shed behind the cabin. He was living in there. I found him sleeping in an old rusty canoe. I scared him the first time. I just threw open the door to have a look around and scared him half to death. He ran away, out a small hole in the shed, and flew like a bat out of hell through the woods. I never thought he’d come back. But he was hungry, and I’d left out food. He said there was no way in hell a cat was staying with us. No way in hell.”
“Who said that, Mia?” I ask. Of course I know. I should have been the damn shrink. But her answer is unexpected.