Critters of Mossy Creek

by Deborah Smith

  Tired an irritable, I snapped. “No, I didn’t bring it home. I just really, really wanted to.”

  “You always want to take care of everyone and everything. But if your blood pressure doesn’t improve, you may be entering a high-risk phase in your pregnancy. Have you been lying on your side for four hours every day like Doc Champion told you?”

  I made a face. “More or less.”

  “Sandy . . .”

  “It’s sooo boring, lying there with nothing to do for four whole hours. Especially when I feel fine!”

  “I just don’t want you to overdo it.”

  “Oh, all right,” I said, not liking the peevish tone of my own voice. I went to the refrigerator. I must’ve really been getting contrary because I didn’t realize how much I wanted that cat until Jess said I couldn’t have it.

  “Leftover chicken for supper,” Jess said. “Salt free.”

  “Great,” I said.

  That night I dreamed of the blue cream kitty. She wandered the streets of Mossy Creek looking for food and a safe, warm place to sleep. She couldn’t hear me call and was always just beyond my reach. I woke up tired, frustrated and ornerier than ever.

  It was Saturday morning, and Jess was already gone—off to cover baseball spring training down at Bigelow High, where our Creekite kids attended. We were all looking forward to next spring, when Mossy Creek High would be open and we’d have our own teams. He had left me a breakfast of a boiled egg and carrot sticks and a note that said, Have a great time at the baby shower.

  I got myself ready, using half a tube of concealer to cover the dark circles under my eyes. As I pulled on my best maternity pants suit, I couldn’t get the mama kitty off my mind. Surely someone at the shower would be interested in giving her a home.

  When I waddled into the Mount Gilead Methodist Church fellowship hall, my oldest friend and former babysitter, Lucy Belle Hamilton Gilreath, met me with a corsage of pink carnations.

  “Hello, sweetie,” she sang out. “You look beautiful.”

  “You’re a good liar,” I said. “But thanks.” Lucy Belle and her grandma, Inez Hamilton Hilley, were giving me this shower on account of them being as close to family as any women in town. Miss Inez was fussing with the tablecloth where the refreshments were laid out, trying to get it even on both sides.

  “A chocolate fountain!” I exclaimed. “Y’all shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble a’tall,” Miss Inez said. “We got it to experiment with having a chow-chow fountain, but the chow-chow was too chunky and it was—”

  “It was gross is what it was,” Lucy Belle finished. “There was just something unappetizing about seeing chunky chow-chow cascading down those tiers in hunks. You need something smooth like chocolate.”

  Miss Inez looked out into space like she had gotten a brainstorm. “Chocolate chow-chow . . .”

  “Oh, me,” said Lucy Belle. “Grandma’s getting one of her ideas. That can be dangerous.”

  I thought I’d passed the stage of morning sickness, but the thought of chunky chocolate chow-chow might be enough to make me backslide. Lucy Belle had given up a lucrative career as a computer programmer to go into the condiment business with her Grandma. One of their secret ingredients—moonshine whiskey—in their signature chow-chow was the worst-kept secret in town.

  “Don’t worry,” Lucy Belle said, misinterpreting what I’m sure must have been a right bilious look on my part. “We washed the fountain out real good. The chocolate won’t taste a thing like vinegar and peppers.”

  I oohed and ahhed over the refreshments and decorations. They had a great big sheet cake with white icing and each piece decorated with pink flowers and a little plastic baby. All my favorites were there too. Lucy Belle remembered how I love butter mints, so she had made a whole bunch in all pastel colors. Then there were the cheese straws and sausage balls I love so much. I couldn’t eat many of them, because they have a lot of salt, but there was plenty of fruit to dip in the chocolate.

  Miss Inez had made my favorite punch—the one from her family recipe with the pineapple juice, ginger ale and citric acid from the drugstore to give it that extra kick. They even froze some in a bunt pan to make a nice little ice ring to float in the punch bowl.

  “Y’all are just too good to me,” I said.

  “Nothing’s too good for our Sandy,” Miss Inez said.

  I grabbed some of the cashews and popped them in my mouth. “Y’all like cats, don’t you?”

  “Love ’em,” Lucy Belle said. “But we already heard about the stray that Aunt Addie Lou found. And I’m afraid that the health department wouldn’t look kindly on a cat living cheek by jowl with the chow-chow operation.”

  “I’m sorry, darlin,’” Miss Inez said. “You know my philosophy is a little cat hair never hurt anybody, but not everybody is that open-minded.”

  Rainey Cecil arrived early to fix my hair, clucking and fussing over me like a hen. Then other guests soon began to arrive—it looked like the whole town turned out—and I asked them every one if they could give a poor little cat and her kittens a home. Everyone had a great excuse why they couldn’t. I nervously munched cashews and sausage balls, hoping that the next person who came through the door would want a cat.

  I tried not to think about my animal woes as I opened the lovely presents everybody brought. Miss Addie Lou hand-crocheted a receiving blanket. Hannah Longstreet made me a Dutch Doll quilt. Ora Sue Salter had Nancy Daniels sew the baby a beautiful dress from one of her favorite patterns. Ida Hamilton Walker and her daughter-in-law gave me a changing table from the department store. Eleanor Abercrombie gave me one of her specially bred rose bushes.

  “Plant this on the day the baby comes,” she said, “and they’ll grow up together.”

  Josie Rutherford gave me a Feng Shui kit for the nursery. And Jayne Reynolds—bless her heart—gave me a six month free pass to her new and improved coffee house.

  Rainey wrote down the name of each guest and what they brought so that I could write my thank-you cards without missing anyone, and saved the bows in a big old zip-lock bag. Waste-not, want-not are words to live by.

  After I’d opened the presents and thanked everyone for coming, Miss Inez and Lucy Belle served the cake. I mingled with my friends and neighbors and thanked them again for their gifts.

  “What are you naming the baby?” Maggie Hart asked between swills of pineapple punch.

  “Faith,” I said. “It came to me in a dream.”

  “It’s bad luck to name the baby before it comes,” warned Maggie’s mother, Millicent Hart Lavender. She had a handful of plastic babies which she had collected from the other guests’ cake.

  “Oh, Mama, stop being crazy,” Maggie said. “That’s just an old family wives’ tale. Don’t pay her any mind, Sandy. You know how she is when she gets too much sugar.”

  Millicent certainly was crazy all right. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her throw those plastic babies onto the floor and try and read their signs and portents like a voodoo mambo casting bones. Even though she was certifiable, her warning gave me the creeps just the same.

  I saw Casey rolling her wheelchair by the refreshment table, balancing her plate on her knees. “Thank you so much for the bath set,” I told her. “I just love those bath towels with the bunny ears. Uh, speaking of animals, how’s the kitty cat?”

  “She went into labor right before I started over here,” Casey said. “I’m afraid she was having some trouble, but Hank’s with her, so I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  My heart sank. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure, really. Hank just said she was having a hard time.”

  “The poor little thing,” I said, feeling a bit dizzy as I remembered my dream. My heart sank. “I wish there was something I could do for her.”

  “Sandy, you don’t look too good. Maybe you should sit down for a while.”

  “Oh, my,” I moaned. “I forgot about the salt in all those cashews. N
ot to mention the sausage balls.”

  “How do you feel?” Casey asked.

  “I’m getting a headache to tell you the truth,” I said. When I looked around the room I realized my vision was blurring. The last thing I remember is hearing myself say, “Uh-oh.”

  I came to on a stretcher while my brother Boo was squeezing my arm with a blood pressure cuff. He was as worried as I’ve ever seen him, which made me a mite nervous, because he’s normally a pretty cool customer.

  “Your BP’s way too high,” he said. “You’re going to the hospital.”

  “Whatever you say,” I said. I wasn’t about to argue with a professional, even if that professional was my little brother and arguing with him came as naturally as breathing.

  Lucy Belle squeezed my hand and said, “You’re going to be fine, Sugar. Just be good for Boo and relax. Mutt is going by the high school to tell Jess and take him to the hospital to meet you.”

  “Okay then,” I said. While Boo was rolling me out, I called out to Casey, “Let me know what happens with the cat and her kittens.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll be just fine. You worry about you and the baby.”

  By the time I arrived at the hospital Jess was already there. He grabbed my hand as they wheeled me into one of the little stalls in the emergency room.

  He had about a thousand questions about how I felt and what happened at the shower when I got sick. He and Boo and Mutt stood around my little bed discussing, speculating, hand wringing and telling me to calm down.

  After the nurse had taken my vital signs, Doctor Champion came in with a clipboard. He asked me lots of questions about how bad my lower back and right shoulder hurt and whether I was having trouble catching my breath. For some reason I found all the questions oddly confusing. When he tapped my knee to test my reflexes, my leg jerked back hard.

  “We’re going to have to do an emergency C-section,” Doctor Champion said.

  “Is the baby developed enough?” Jess asked.

  “We think her lungs and other organs are mature enough, yes,” the doctor said. “If she needs help for the first few days, we’ll keep her in an incubator until she’s strong enough to go home.”

  My brothers kissed me on the forehead and murmured words of encouragement. Jess kissed me and said, “I love you a bushel and a peck, Babe. You hang in there, you hear?”

  “You bet I will. I love you too,” I said.

  They wheeled me into the operating room and that’s about the last thing I remember until I woke up with a yelling, wriggling, pink little blond baby lying across my chest. Jess was there with tears on his cheeks and a disposable camera someone had given him.

  I had told him I didn’t want a movie camera in the delivery room, but a regular still one was fine as long as it was pointed with discretion.

  “Are her lungs as good as they sound?” I asked the doctor.

  “Indeed, they are,” Doctor Champion said. I could see his eyes crinkle into a reassuring smile over the top of his surgical mask.

  “How about the rest of her?” I asked, touching my baby’s smooth, moist cheek for the first time.

  “She’s fine,” the doctor said. “Small, but she’ll make up for that in no time. We’re going to keep you in the hospital for a couple of days to make sure you’re a hundred percent. We’ll keep Faith in an incubator for a week or so more until we’re certain she’s strong enough to go home.”

  Jess snapped a picture of me and the baby. “Ora Sue said I could take the month off starting today. A whole caravan of women from the baby shower are out in the waiting room. I’m going out to tell them the news that you and the baby are going to be fine,” he said.

  After I’d nursed the baby and she’d cleaned us both up, the nurse took Faith back to the incubator. The women from the shower came in to see me two-by-two after they’d peeked through the viewing glass at Faith. They declared her to be perfection itself and made rosy prognostications about her future.

  Lucy Belle had boxed up the cake and plastic plates and was handing out refreshments in the waiting room while Jess gave away cigars to anyone who wanted one.

  Later, when Jess was asleep in the chair across from my hospital bed, I counted all my blessings—a beautiful, healthy new baby, a wonderful and thoughtful husband, a great job and a brand new dream house almost ready to move into.

  I was so very lucky and grateful. But as I drifted off to sleep I just couldn’t get the homeless, trusting mama kitty off my mind. Would her babies be as healthy as my baby was? I sure hoped so. I drifted off to the remembered sound of her gentle purring.

  ooo

  The next day little Faith was doing fine and my blood pressure was almost normal. Jess left early to go and check on the construction project but promised to come back by lunch time. I had several visitors, including my boss, police Chief Amos Royden, and Mayor Ida Walker. As soon as I had a moment to myself, I crossed my fingers and called Blackshear Veterinary Clinic to get an update on the kitty cat.

  Hank came to the phone. “She’s fine, Sandy. She had a pretty little girl just like you did.”

  “Just one?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Hank explained. “The reason she had problems is that instead of a whole litter, she had just one really big kitten.”

  “I’d love to come by and see her on the way home from this hospital if that’s okay,” I said.

  “That won’t be possible. One of my vet techs found her and the kitten a home. Isn’t that great news?”

  “It certainly is,” I said. “Thanks so much for helping her, Hank.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, “and kiss that new baby for me.”

  As I hung up the phone I said little prayer of thanks that my fuzzy friend and her baby had found a home. I felt sad realizing that I wouldn’t see her again, though. I felt like the little animal and I had a sisterhood of sorts over the motherhood thing. Whoever adopted both her and her kitten so they could stay together deserved a special place in heaven in my book.

  ooo

  Monday morning, while I was slowly walking laps around the nurse’s station to get back in shape, Doctor Champion stopped by on rounds and declared me to be in excellent health. As soon as he’d signed the release papers, we packed up to go home for awhile. I planned to spend most of my time at the hospital with Faith until she was released.

  As he’d settled me into the car, Jess asked, “Do you feel like driving out to the new house or do you want to go home and rest?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked. “I’ve been resting for the last two days. I want to see how the house is coming. What have they done since I saw it last?”

  “It’s a surprise,” he said. “I got all inspired and put in a new feature all by myself just yesterday that I think you’ll like.”

  On the way to the house we talked about our future, our hopes and dreams for our little girl and plans for our life in our new home.

  When we reached the building site, I noticed the shutters and all the new trim that had been added since I’d seen it last week. “It looks like a real house now,” I enthused. “When can we move in?”

  “By the end of the week, I would think,” he said. “But remember, when it’s time to move, you’re not lifting anything heavier than that baby.”

  “Whatever you say,” I agreed. I carefully dodged pieces of spare lumber on the way to the door.

  “Ordinarily I’d carry you over the threshold, but since you’re convalescing, I don’t want to take a chance on dropping you, so I’ll wait,” Jess kidded.

  “Where’s this new feature you’re so proud of?” I asked.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  We walked all the way through the house to the back porch. I’d always wanted a house with a wraparound porch, and the back part was screened in so we could enjoy sitting by the babbling brook without getting eaten up by the skeeters in the summertime.

  I walked through the door to the screened-in porch an
d saw that one end had a maze of two-by-fours suspended from the ceiling and painted in all the colors of the rainbow. The little ramps and ladders connected with each other and veered off in all directions until they wound up with the end of one plank resting on the porch floor.

  “What in the world?” I marveled.

  “It’s a catscape,” Jess explained. “Look right over here.”

  Jess led me over to a big cardboard box I hadn’t noticed in the sunny corner where some leftover building material was stacked. I looked over the side and saw the fuzzy mama kitty peering up at me from where she lay curled up next to her sleeping kitten.

  “How do you like your housewarming present?” Jess asked.

  “Oh, Jess! It’s the best gift ever! Hank told me they found a home for the cats, but he didn’t tell me who adopted them.”

  “I swore him to secrecy. In exchange I had to promise that we’d bring them in to get spayed when the mom is ready and when the baby is old enough. Oh, and I also promised we’d always keep them indoors so they’ll be safe and to never have them de-clawed. That’s what the catscape’s for. They can climb and play out here as much as they want when they’re not in the house with us.”

  I petted the gray kitty, who stretched her sleek neck upward to meet my touch. Then Jess very gently lifted her baby onto my palm. “They say you should handle kittens early and often so they’ll bond with humans.”

  “Hank said you don’t have to wait until their eyes are open like they used to say when we were growing up.”

  The fuzzy baby squirmed and mewled in my hands. Jess took her and set her back down against her mother’s side. “Jess, I couldn’t be happier. But what made you change your mind about us adopting the cats?”

  “I did some research on the internet,” Jess said. “I found out that just holding a pet can make your blood pressure go down. Did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t, but I do know one thing,” I said. “I have just about the smartest husband in the world.”

  Jess bent down to kiss me. “And I have most sensible wife in the world. But hey, tell me this—what are you going to name these cats?”