If I ran the world, every adult would get several time-outs from life. The time-outs would come about every twenty years, and each one would last five years. Five years to recover from school or marriage or parenthood or career or war or grief. Five years to cry or sleep or pray or stare at the wall. A roof and a bed would be provided, along with an unlimited supply of wholesome food, musical instruments, and books. No drugs, alcohol, or tobacco would be allowed. No therapists or religious proselytizers. At the end of five years, recovered lifers would swear an oath to give more thought to the four Fs—family, friends, food, and fun—than to career goals, achievements, possessions, status, or bank statements.
When sleep managed to shut up my thinking mind, my dream mind took over and sent me to a gift shop so posh and out of my league that I was embarrassed to pollute it with my presence. I didn’t have any choice, though. Under dream rules, I had to buy a gift for Guidry and I had to buy it at that particular shop.
I said, “I want to buy a gift for someone important to me.”
As soon as the words left my lips, I felt my face flush. The female salesclerk, who looked like Myra Kreigle but was somebody else, gave me a pitying look.
“Would that be a male or female? Adult or child?”
My face got even hotter. I should have thought this out before I came in.
“Male,” I said. “Adult.”
“Aha,” she said, as if I’d gone beyond her expectations. “Now, is this adult male a coworker, a family friend, a relative, or a lover?” The sneer in her voice implied that it was highly unlikely I had a lover.
Now my face was so hot I knew I had turned an unlovely magenta. I had to get this conversation under control. My control, and the way to do that seemed to call for pretending not to be Guidry’s lover.
“More like a friend who might conceivably become a lover. Someday. Maybe.”
She gave me a coolly appraising look and I knew she was wondering how anybody as incoherent as I had ever managed to meet a man like that. Meanwhile, my face had got flaming hot because I’d used the word conceivably, as in conceive, as in get pregnant not by asexual means.
She said, “Does he have any hobbies that you know of?”
Clearly, she doubted I knew a man well enough to know if he had hobbies. I felt insulted, but the truth was that if Guidry had any hobbies, I didn’t know what they were.
I said the only thing that came to mind. “He’s from New Orleans.”
She nodded, the way people encourage awkward children, but she disappeared without suggesting an appropriate gift. I was left feeling I’d missed the only opportunity I’d ever have to give something valuable to Guidry.
15
I woke the next morning feeling as if a weight had rolled off me while I slept. I still felt that Ruby and I were kindred spirits, but Ruby’s load was her own to carry, not mine. The law of cause and effect creates strict boundaries in every person’s life, and Ruby was experiencing the effects of her own decisions and actions. I could sympathize with her and be of help to her, but I knew I could not and should not interfere in her life. Furthermore, I was a pet sitter. My job was to empty Cheddar’s litter box, not to imagine myself mother to Opal or big sister to Ruby. Mr. Stern was Ruby’s grandfather, and even though he had behaved like a prize boob the day before, I believed he was a better man than he acted, and that he cared for Ruby and Opal. They would all be okay without my hand-wringing concern.
Going downstairs to the Bronco, I whisper-sang off-key, “You’re entirely way too fine, entirely way too fine, get me all worked up like that, entirely way too fine, da-da-da-di-da, um-hunh.” Lucinda Williams will never fear competition from me. The air had a salty, sandy, fishy Gulf smell, the fragrance of life. The sky was fleecy, with a thin disc of retreating moon hanging over a pewter sea. On the pale shoreline, as if to echo my whispered song, a sighing surf foamed scalloped designs onto the sand. A great blue heron asleep on the hood of my Bronco extracted his plumed head from under his wing when he heard my song, gave me a red-rimmed glare of indignation, stretched his wings to their full six-foot span, and flapped away with the muted sound of an avalanche. All in all, a normal, run-of-the-mill, predawn morning on the Key.
The rest of the morning was typical. The horizon pinked at the right time, glowed apricot on cue, and ever so subtly transmuted itself into a smooth pale blue canvas for the day’s artistry. Gulls gathered into balletic groups to swoop and wheel against the sky’s blue scrim, terns and egrets got busy picking up tasty morsels on the ground, songbirds trilled and chirped just because they felt like it. Billy Elliot and I did our regular run, and then I went house to house feeding cats, grooming cats, playing with cats. I was so efficient, so cheerful, so good, I could have been the star of a documentary about pet sitting.
Even Mr. Stern’s sulkiness didn’t faze me. When I got to his house, Ruby opened the door. She looked happier, and I hoped it was because she’d escaped stress for a little while the night before.
She rolled her eyes toward the kitchen in a sort of conspiratorial way to let me know that Mr. Stern could hear us. “Cheddar’s with Opal again. He slept under the crib last night and he’s been in the bedroom all morning. Opal looks for him when he’s not there. It’s funny how they’ve bonded.”
I didn’t imagine Mr. Stern thought it was funny. I had an image of him sitting alone in the dark courtyard, watching the play of light on the waterfall without Cheddar in his lap.
I bustled into the kitchen as if I didn’t notice Mr. Stern’s dour expression. He sat at his spot at the bar, waiting for me to arrive and boil his eggs, make his toast, pour him a cup of coffee from a pot heating on its pad on the counter. Mr. Stern was perfectly capable of boiling his own eggs, making his own toast, and pouring his own coffee. Jealousy of Cheddar’s attachment to Opal had caused him to go infantile and demanding, traits he would have sneered at in anybody else.
Ruby drifted into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, and leaned against the counter to watch me cater to her grandfather’s grouchy mood. I had the dance down pat: eggs in a pan, a pirouette to the sink for water on the eggs, another to set the pan on the stove. Two slices of bread in the toaster, set the darkness indicator, do an arabesque to the cupboard for the cat food, a plié to sprinkle dry food in the cat’s bowl and set it on the floor. I felt so graceful and birdlike, it’s a wonder I didn’t break into canary song.
With Ruby and Mr. Stern as audience, I added Cheddar’s coddled egg to his food, got out a plate for Mr. Stern, fished his soft-cooked eggs from the pan, and buttered his toast. But as I set Mr. Stern’s breakfast on the bar, an uneasy awareness of something not right made me turn my head toward the bedroom wing. At the same moment, Ruby’s head rose like a dog sniffing the air.
In the next instant we both whirled and ran.
Behind us, Mr. Stern shouted, “What is it? What’s happening?”
I could smell it now, an acrid odor of smoke along with an oddly sweet scent.
I yelled, “Fire! Call nine-one-one!”
Down the hall, tongues of flame licked from under Ruby’s closed bedroom door, and I could feel waves of heat emanating from it. Even with my mind in chaotic panic, I knew the intensity of that heat made no sense. It was too strong, too forceful, too driven. Heat of that magnitude could only be generated by a blaze that had been raging for a long time.
Ruby screamed and pushed past me to open the bedroom door. But before her clawing hand reached the knob, the door blew toward us as if it had been hit by a bomb. In its place was an impenetrable wall of raging fire.
Howling with panic, Ruby clambered over the door toward the roaring flames. I would have done the same if my baby had been on the other side of that wall of fire, but I caught her around the waist and pulled her back.
She twisted against me and beat at my hands. “Opal is in there!”
“We can’t go through those flames! We’ll have to go through the outside door!”
If she heard me, the w
ords didn’t register. Determined to go through fire to get to her baby, she clawed and kicked at me while I tried to drag her away from the doorway.
As if it had malevolent intelligence, the fire stood like a pillar from hell, its mighty force melting the paint on the door frame in cascading ripples that added a rubbery smell to the stench of smoldering wood.
Mr. Stern ran toward us, ineffectually yanking at his shoulder brace to try to free his injured arm.
I yelled, “Did you call nine-one-one?”
“Fire trucks are on their way!”
With one arm still immobile in its brace, he charged toward the flames with the same determination Ruby had.
I yelled, “You can’t go in there, Mr. Stern!”
He stopped, but his rigid back said he was trying to figure out how best to dash through the flames and rescue his great-grandbaby. His carriage said he was a military man, he’d encountered fires before, he could handle this.
Fiery fingers reached through the doorway to stroke the wallpaper in the hall, and still he stood poised to run forward. Wild with terror, Ruby struggled against me like a feral creature. I could barely keep my hold on her. I couldn’t fight them both. If Mr. Stern plunged into that furnace, I would not be able to stop him.
“Mr. Stern, please!”
With a shudder of broken acceptance, he turned toward me, reaching with his good arm to help me restrain Ruby. He meant to help, but the truth was that holding Ruby was definitely a two-handed job. Besides, I needed as much space as I could get, and he was in the way.
In my deputy voice, I shouted, “Stand aside, please!”
He looked shocked, then hurt, then nodded sad understanding. I had succeeded in reminding him that he was too old, too weak, and too useless to save either his great-grandbaby or his granddaughter. With a last sorrowful look at the inferno that had been Ruby’s bedroom, he ran down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Mr. Stern, we have to get out of here!”
He yelled, “Not without Cheddar!”
I didn’t have any breath left to argue with him. He had either forgotten that Cheddar had been in the bedroom with Opal, or he had slipped into denial.
My throat burned from the smoke, and my arms felt as if they were being pulled from their sockets. With my last shred of strength, I spun Ruby around so fast her feet left the floor. Kicking the air, she screamed and fought while I slogged her weight toward the front door. But I was no bigger or stronger than she, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep her from twisting away from me. If she did, she would die trying to save her baby.
The siren grew louder. Grimly holding on to Ruby, I floundered down the hall. At the front door, I shouted to Mr. Stern again, but got no answer. With one last burst of effort, I managed to hold Ruby with one arm and grab the doorknob and wrench it open with the other. Blessed fresh air hit my face, along with the sight of a fire truck pulling to the curb with uniformed firefighters spilling from it.
Michael was at the forefront, and as he ran up the driveway he looked so much like our father that I felt an out-of-time sense of history repeating itself. But our father had died saving a child’s life, and I was sure the child in this house was already dead. No living being could survive the cauldron of fire that Ruby’s bedroom had become.
Seeing me struggle with Ruby, he took her from me as if she were a rag doll and stood her on her feet. “Stay out of the house!”
Ruby’s hair was wild, her face smudged with soot and smoke, her eyes all pupil, black and insane. “My baby’s in there!”
Putting his face close to hers, Michael shouted, “Then don’t get in the way while we put out the fire!”
She recoiled as if she’d been slapped, but her eyes focused and she didn’t try to run back inside.
I said, “The fire’s in a bedroom with an outside sliding door. There’s a baby in the bedroom. Also a cat. And an elderly man in the kitchen. He’s looking for the cat. He doesn’t want to leave without him.”
Other firefighters surged forward, and Michael barked information to them. “Outside slider to the bedroom where the fire is. Baby and cat in the bedroom, elderly man in the kitchen, irrational.”
Within seconds, a fireman had gone in and brought Mr. Stern out the door, with orders to all of us to get as far away as possible. We huddled in a clump at the end of the driveway, staring wordlessly at the house. Ruby shook so violently that I put both arms around her and held her tightly, like swaddling an infant. Mr. Stern was pale as white marble, his eyes dry and staring as if he’d suffered a shock that left him unable to blink.
More sirens approached, more fire trucks jerked to a stop in front of the house, more firefighters appeared in their helmets and boots and uniforms. Two ambulances with EMTs came, along with a department car driven by a deputy fire chief. Across the street, neighbors had come outside to watch, clotted together as if to protect one another.
A woman ran across the street and put an arm around Ruby.
The woman said, “You shouldn’t be this close, come across the street.”
She and I half-carried Ruby while Mr. Stern followed like an obedient child. Other neighbors had spread quilts and pillows on the grass for people to sit on. My rational self was grateful for their kindness. My cynical self resented the way they seemed to prepare for an outdoor concert. My cynical self had misunderstood their intent. Instead of watching as if it were an entertaining event, the neighbors observed a solemn hush as if they were in church.
Ruby stared mutely for a while and then with an anguished howl toppled to the ground facedown. Wordlessly, women gathered beside her and stroked her back, their eyes meeting in silent pity above her devastated form. None of us could imagine a grief so shattering as Ruby felt. None of us could offer any solace or hope or comfort. All we could do was surround her with compassion. Mr. Stern sat alone, sending out waves of resistance that kept the neighbors away. I didn’t approach him either. Every person grieves in his own way, and I respected Mr. Stern’s right to suffer in solitude. He knew what had happened. He knew that there was no hope for either Opal or Cheddar.
I don’t know how long we sat there. Time seemed to both speed up and slow to a crawl. I took it all in as if I were watching from a disincarnate distance.
After what seemed eons, Michael stepped from the front door cradling a small blanket-wrapped form in his arms.
16
A woman in the group said, “What’s that fireman carrying? Is that a baby?”
Ruby scrambled to her feet. “Opal!”
Michael hurried to one of the ambulances where an EMT opened the back door.
With me close behind her, Ruby ran across the street and clutched Michael’s sleeve. “My baby?”
He shook his head. “It’s the cat.”
He turned a corner of the blanket back to reveal Cheddar’s limp form. He was not burned, but his eyes were closed and his mouth open, and I couldn’t see any sign of breath.
Michael said, “I found him when I felt under the bed. At first I thought it was a stuffed toy.”
Ruby turned to me with hope lighting her eyes. I knew what she was thinking: if Cheddar had escaped the flames, Opal might have too. But a cat can crawl under a bed when a room is afire. A four-month-old baby cannot.
Michael handed Cheddar to the EMT and ran back to the house. The EMT climbed into the ambulance where a second EMT already had the pet oxygen mask ready to put over Cheddar’s snout. When it was in place, Cheddar lay on the EMT’s lap with a hose attached to an oxygen tank snaking over his limp body.
Across the street, Mr. Stern had managed to push himself up from the ground—not an easy feat with one arm in a sling. He moved toward us in jerky steps like a marionette whose strings needed adjusting. When he reached Ruby, he put his good arm around her shoulders. At his touch, Ruby sagged against his thin chest while he awkwardly patted her back.
One of the neighbor women ran to help Ruby back to her spot across the street.
Mr
. Stern watched them go, then turned his attention to Cheddar. Only a fine tremor in his shoulders betrayed his despair.
I said, “Mr. Stern, the EMTs have a special oxygen mask for animals. They’re using it on Cheddar.”
“What about Opal?”
I had never heard him say the baby’s name before.
“We don’t know yet.”
“So much tzuris,” he muttered. “Such tzuris!”
I didn’t know Yiddish, but the sound reflected the suffering and trouble around us.
Across the street, Ruby had folded to her knees and buried her face in her hands while neighbor women tried to comfort her. Watching them, I thought of the way Myra Kreigle had once mothered Ruby. I wondered if Myra was watching Ruby now from her second-story window.
After what seemed like an eon, the EMTs gave each other tentative smiles. I hadn’t seen a change in Cheddar, but the EMTs must have seen a twitch of his tail or a blink of his eye. Mr. Stern made a thin noise in his throat that told me he’d seen their smiles too. But that was all we had, that hint of possible success.
In a few minutes, we both saw the tip of Cheddar’s tail lift, saw him paw at the oxygen mask, saw his eyes open. Mr. Stern’s face crumpled into unashamed tears of joy.
A few more minutes, and they removed the oxygen mask and gently lifted Cheddar to his feet. He stood, stretched his tongue in a wide-mouthed yawn, then curled into a ball on the EMT’s lap.
The second EMT stood up and spoke to Mr. Stern. “Sir, I think your cat’s going to make it. He’s breathing on his own, and he’s able to stand up. We’re going to take him to an animal clinic. You can ride with us, if you’d like.”
Humbly, Mr. Stern said, “Thank you, young man.” I’d never heard him be humble before.
I said, “I’ll follow you in my car.”
“No, you stay here with Ruby.”
Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons Page 10
