I thought a moment and sipped my coffee.
“I used to think he was wishing.”
“When?”
“When he stayed on my chest or sat on a couch, he put his paws together and closed his eyes, and I used to think he was wishing for things.”
“Good things?”
“Yes, mostly.”
Cat wishes, I thought. My dad put his arm over my shoulders, and I almost burst out crying.
Before we could talk more about it, Mom appeared carrying something in her hands, and it took me a moment to realize she had collected most of Mr. Periwinkle’s toys. A cat fishing pole, a knitted robin, a wind-up mouse that contained catnip, a jingle bell swat ball. Whether she meant it as an act of kindness or simply wanted to be rid of the clutter of owning a cat, I couldn’t determine. She loved Mr. Periwinkle, I knew, but she loved him from a distance, as you might love a sunset or a snowstorm.
Then I realized if she meant it simply as a means to rid herself of the cat junk, she could have thrown it out and I would have been none the wiser. Over the last years, while I was at school, she had been the cat custodian. Somewhat grumpy, and grudging with her outward affection, she had been as fond of Mr. Periwinkle as I had been. She was simply more private about it. I realized that was something I had to keep in mind about my mother.
“That looks nice,” Mom said about the grave. “You did a good job, honey.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Are we ready?” Dad asked.
I went and carried the box from the garage. It weighed next to nothing. This was the second thing I had buried, I realized, in less than a half year. That probably had some meaning, but I couldn’t divine what it might be.
I held the box and asked everyone to put a hand on it.
“Good-bye, Mr. Periwinkle,” I said. “You were a good cat and a good friend, and no one can ask for more than that.”
Mom, my sweet mom, put her face down and began to cry. My dad knelt on the other side of the hole and helped me put the box inside. Then Mom handed us the cat toys, and we buried those on top, turning our Mr. Periwinkle into a tiny Viking warrior, in his hatbox ship, who would need his weapons and inspirations of joy if he intended to feast in Valhalla with Odin on this gray October morning.
41
“You still haven’t heard anything about him? No word from him, of course,” Mom asked.
It was late. Dad had gone to bed. We sat in the solarium with two cups of tea. Mom wanted to try a licorice-flavored tea that was supposed to be good for muscle and tendon ache. She always tried various teas, few of them effective, but I liked the scent of the licorice in the chill interior of the solarium. I held the cup close to my chest.
I shook my head. I hadn’t heard anything about him.
She didn’t have to spell out whom she meant by him.
“Well,” she said and let it hang.
“Constance says Raef refuses to talk about it. He’ll talk about anything else, but not about Jack.”
“And they’re engaged? Constance and Raef?”
“Yes.”
“That’s wonderful. I wouldn’t have pictured Constance being the first to go in your little group.”
“You mean to be married?”
“I would have put my money on Amy.”
“Amy, not so much, Mom.”
“Do you still have his grandfather’s journal?” she asked, switching subjects.
I nodded. I didn’t have an address for Jack. I had to keep it.
She sipped her tea. I did, too. I didn’t much care for it. I had a Vogue magazine open on my lap, and I occasionally flipped a page. Mom had the Times’ Sunday crossword cut out and clipped to the clipboard she always kept for that purpose. It was Sunday, and I should have been on a train back to Manhattan, except that it was Columbus Day weekend, and Monday was a holiday. I planned to take an early train back, then work in the afternoon.
“Do you like these blazers?” I asked my mom, and I held up a page of the magazine for her to peruse. She pinched her folded glasses against her eyes and looked at the pictures. This was an old game with us. We had always talked clothes, even during the stormier days of high school. One of the few highlights of being home after Paris was shopping for my business wardrobe with Mom. She liked coming into New York and having a daughter to meet for lunch. I liked those days with my mom.
“I’ve never been much for blazers,” Mom said, dropping her glasses down and returning to her struggle with the crossword. “They always remind me of Catholic schoolgirl uniforms. I see their utility, but I just never went for them.”
“I have that camel one, but I hardly ever wear it.”
“It’s hard to find an occasion to wear one.”
I flipped some more pages. Mom sipped her tea.
“Do you like the tea?” she asked.
“Not a lot. Do you?”
“It tastes too licorice-y.”
“But good for your joints and tendons.”
She reached to the table beside her chair and used the remote control to turn on the gas fireplace in the corner of the solarium. It popped into action immediately. She loved running the gas stove. She said it made her feel like a pioneer woman. Mostly, I thought, she liked the contrast of the cold glass pressing against the warmth inside the room.
She smiled at the fire and pushed the crossword off her lap.
“Did I ever tell you about the pumpkin war I fought?” she asked. “I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about it lately. I guess it’s just the season. Did I tell you the story?”
“No, Mom. Pumpkin war?”
“Oh, that makes it sound more dramatic than it was. But I fought it alongside a few of my friends. We must have been in, oh, seventh grade or so. And we got to talking about the unfairness of boys coming by and smashing the pumpkins we’d spent so much time carving. Are you sure I didn’t tell you this?”
I shook my head, fascinated.
“It was my idea, I suppose, but I talked all my friends into pushing pins from the inside through the pumpkin skin so that each jack-o’-lantern became as prickly as a porcupine. I don’t even recall where I got the idea; maybe I read it somewhere. Anyway, it was us against these imagined boys—the boys who smashed our pumpkins. We pictured them sneaking up to our doorsteps, reaching for the pumpkins, then jumping back when they were pricked by the pins. It was actually a pretty devilish idea. Each night that the pumpkins survived seemed to be proof of our cleverness. It was really very fun. We’d meet in school each day to report that this or that pumpkin had made it through the night. It was the first thing I ever led—counterterrorism, right?”
“Mom, you rebel! So did the pumpkins make it through until Halloween?”
“We ended up smashing them ourselves. I’ve always wondered about that. One night we got on the phone and decided to smash them. We all found gardening gloves so we could pick them up or whatever, and we smashed them. I think we missed having the boys’ naughtiness or something. I’ve never been able to understand our motive.”