The Cats Came Back

by Sofie Kelly

  “Splendid,” Rebecca said with a grin that made her look like a mischievous little girl.

  Maggie and Rebecca talked about their plans for decorating the living room of the old farmhouse as we drove out to Wisteria Hill. At one point Mags gestured over her shoulder with one hand. “There’s a drawing in the top box next to you,” she said. “You can have a look and see what we’re talking about.”

  I lifted the flap on the carton and felt around inside. My hand touched what felt like a glass vase before I grabbed the sheet of paper with Maggie’s plans. And they looked to be fairly detailed plans, I discovered as I studied the equally detailed drawings she’d done. That was the way Maggie was. I knew the living room of the old farmhouse would be beautiful by the time she and Rebecca had worked their magic.

  Rebecca shifted in her seat and looked back at me. “I’m glad Roma and Eddie decided to get married at the house,” she said. “I think it’s a wonderful place to begin their marriage.”

  “And you’re not at all biased,” I said, smiling at her. Rebecca’s mother had worked at the old estate, and Rebecca had pretty much grown up out there, along with Everett, who had been in love with her his whole life. She and Everett had been married in that same room.

  “Not in the slightest,” she said solemnly, and then she laughed.

  Rebecca and Maggie talked about the decorations all the way out to Wisteria Hill. They were still talking about lights when Maggie parked the car and we got out. She grabbed two of the boxes and I got the other one. Rebecca led the way to the side door of the old farmhouse. Roma answered our knock. The first thing I noticed was that she seemed distracted. She was wearing a sleeveless tank and loose sweatpants rolled at the ankles. Her feet were bare and her hair was pulled back in a stubby ponytail.

  “Hi, guys, she said. “You can just stick those in the living room.”

  I followed Maggie and Rebecca into the room and set my box on the floor. Maggie had already set down her two cartons and was standing in front of the fireplace, hands on her hips. Rebecca was turning in a slow circle, lips moving, counting silently to herself, maybe?

  “Where’s your mom?” I said to Roma.

  “Mary swooped in to take her shoe shopping,” she said.

  I put an arm around her shoulders. “Everything all right?” I asked.

  She shook her head in frustration. “Not really. I’d say Olivia is acting like a child, but she didn’t behave like this when she was one. Syd, on the other hand, is trying way too hard to be the perfect child.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear. “Last night Eddie joked that he had a full tank of gas in the truck and there was still time to elope, and I almost took him up on it.” She pulled a hand over her neck. “At least I think he was joking.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She leaned her head against mine for a moment. “I never thought Olivia would react this way. She always seemed to like Eddie. I thought she’d be happy for me. When I called her to say we were getting married she really seemed good with it.”

  She looked over at Maggie and Rebecca, who seemed to be having a very serious discussion about the fireplace mantel. “And now decorating fairies have taken over my living room.” She gave me a wry smile.

  I laughed and put both arms around her. “What can I do?” I asked.

  “Keep your truck gassed up,” she said. “That eloping idea is getting better by the minute.”

  I gave her another hug.

  “I’m going to tell Sydney you’re here and get some shoes,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I walked over to Maggie. “What can I do?” I asked her.

  “There are four strings of fairy lights in one of those boxes,” she said, making a vague gesture over her shoulder. “Could you find them, please?”

  I was sitting on the floor straightening out a string of lights, when I heard raised voices coming from the kitchen. I glanced up at Maggie, who was standing on a stepladder attaching removable hooks to the wall. She made a face.

  Olivia was standing in the doorway now. I could see Roma just beyond her. She’d pulled on a denim shirt and was holding one sock.

  “Why?” Olivia said. “Because you’re rushing things. You’re not some love-struck teenager. You’re a grown woman.” Her voice got louder and angrier with each word. She took a couple of steps into the room. “This is silly,” she said, making a sweeping dramatic gesture. “Decorations and lights and stupid froufrou.”

  “You don’t even live here anymore,” Roma said, and I could see how hard it was for her to keep her voice reasonable. She was clutching the lone sock so tightly in her hand the skin was stretched white over her knuckles. “I have a great new life ahead of me. I’m happy. Why are you so angry?” I saw movement behind her and realized Sydney was standing there, listening to it all.

  “It’s not just your life,” Olivia shouted. “It’s my life, too. Why do you have to change everything? Things were fine the way they were. We were fine.”

  Something changed in Roma’s expression. “Wonder Woman and Supergirl.” She smiled at her daughter. “You’re right. Life was wonderful when it was just you and me, and I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. It was the best time of my life, and nothing will ever change that.”

  “So why are you changing everything?” Olivia said, brushing angrily at the tears slipping down her face.

  “Because life with Eddie and Sydney and you is also the best time of my life, and nothing will ever change that, either.” I could hear the love in her voice.

  Eddie came up behind her and put his arms around her. “Best time of my life, as well,” he said, kissing the top of Roma’s head.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” Olivia sounded more like a child than a grown woman.

  “Do you remember when we went to the state fair and rode the Ferris wheel for the first time?” Roma asked. It seemed like a strange question to ask now.

  Olivia nodded, wiping tears off her chin.

  “Do you remember what you said about that day?”

  “Best day ever,” Olivia said in a low voice.

  “Do you remember the day you won the part of Anita in West Side Story and all your friends cheered and clapped? What did you tell me about that day?”

  “I said that was the best day ever.” Realization began to show on her face.

  “And they were,” Roma said.

  “You don’t just get one best day in your life,” Eddie said.

  Roma looked up at him and smiled before turning her attention back to Olivia. “The best day ever was the day I married your father. We were so young and we thought we owned the world. The best day ever was the day you were born, because I thought I could never love someone as much as I already loved that tiny person they put in my arms.”

  I felt a tear slip down my cheek.

  Roma put a hand on Eddie’s arm. “The best day ever was when I asked Eddie to marry me in the middle of Kathleen’s kitchen and he said yes. And the best day ever will be when we actually get married and make our two families into one. And then when you get married and when Sydney does and when I get to be a grandmother. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  Olivia nodded her head. “I’m a brat,” she said, and then she burst into tears.

  Roma folded Olivia into her arms and Eddie wrapped his around both of them. After a minute Olivia lifted her face and Roma wiped the tears away with her hand. She gave her mother a shaky smile. “Can you forgive me?” she said.

  “Always,” Roma said, kissing her forehead.

  Olivia sniffed a couple of times and looked at Eddie. “Can you forgive me?” she asked.

  “We’re family,” he said. “It’s what we do.” Then he laughed. “This is my circus.” He gestured with one hand. “And you’re one of my monkeys.”

  Olivia went to wash her face. Eddie anno
unced to the room in general that he was going to put the kettle on, and Maggie, Rebecca and I wrapped Roma in a group hug.

  Rebecca patted her cheek. “I’m going to help Eddie make tea.” She smiled at me. “And a pot of coffee.”

  “And I’m going to start putting up froufrou,” Maggie said with a grin.

  “I think we’re okay,” Roma said to me.

  I nodded. “I think you are.”

  She looked around the room. “I’m getting married in three days.”

  I laughed. “You just figure that out?”

  Roma laughed. “It just suddenly felt real.” She looked over her shoulder. “Wait. Where’s Sydney?”

  I pointed toward the doorway. “She was right there just a couple of minutes ago.”

  “Hang on a minute,” she said. She left the room, and I heard her calling Sydney’s name with increasing anxiousness in her voice.

  I stepped out onto the side veranda. There was no sign of Syd anywhere in the yard. I went back into the house.

  Roma was standing in the middle of the kitchen, a stricken expression on her face. “Sydney’s gone,” she said.

  chapter 18

  “First things first,” Eddie said. “We’ll check the house again.” He looked at me. “Kathleen, please check upstairs.” Maggie was in the living room doorway. “Maggie, down here, please.” He turned to Roma, who had been joined by Olivia. “You two check the yard. I’ll check the basement.”

  It very quickly became clear that Sydney wasn’t anywhere in the house or the yard, either.

  “I don’t understand,” Roma said. “Why would she run off?”

  “We were fighting,” Olivia said, shamefaced.

  Maggie nodded. “She was standing behind you. I could see her from the ladder. She heard some of what you said, but I don’t think all of it.”

  Roma closed her eyes for a second, and the color drained from her face. “So she could have heard me say that when it was just Olivia and me it was the best time of my life and not heard anything that came after that.”

  Eddie pulled out his phone. “I’m calling Marcus,” he said.

  We split up to search the woods. Eddie stuck his head in the carriage house and called Syd’s name several times. There was no response. “She’s not here,” he said.

  Rebecca stayed at the house in case Sydney came back and to wait for Marcus. Eddie and Roma went up the embankment behind the carriage house and headed for the old well in the woods. Maggie started down the driveway, toward the road. Olivia and I cut across the field and started searching both sides of the brook.

  We checked the bushes and the long grass and called out Sydney’s name. There was no answer and no sign of her.

  “This is my fault,” Olivia said. We’d walked farther along the edge of the brook, farther than Sydney could have gotten, and had started back, spreading out beyond its banks. Olivia was just ahead and she turned back to look at me. “I was acting like a child.”

  I grabbed her by the shoulder and swung her around to face me, probably not as gently as I should have. “This is not helping,” I said. “You’re the person closest in age to Sydney. Think like a child. Where would she go?”

  Olivia didn’t move. She didn’t say anything. I let go of her shirt. Her eyes were focused on something beyond my right shoulder.

  Suddenly she looked at me. “I know where she is,” she exclaimed. She started running, up the slope from the brook and back across the field. I ran after her.

  Olivia pushed open the door to the carriage house and bent over, hands on her thighs, to catch her breath. Then she straightened up. “Sydney, I know you’re in here,” she called.

  There was no response.

  Olivia beckoned to me. We moved to the area where the feral cats had their feeding station. She pointed across the space to the hayloft on the far wall across from the cats’ shelters. We walked across the wooden floor.

  “Syd, I know you’re up there,” Olivia said.

  “Go away,” a small voice replied.

  “You know I’m not going to go away,” Olivia said. “Everyone’s looking for you. Your dad is worried and my mom is scared to death.”

  “I don’t care,” Syd said.

  “Yeah, that’s a lie.”

  I saw movement up above us. How had she gotten up there? I looked around. A rickety ladder was lying on the ground. Syd was stuck up there. “I hate you,” she said.

  “First true thing you’ve said,” Olivia replied. I touched her arm and pointed to the ladder. She nodded.

  Sydney sniffed a couple of times. “I heard what Roma said, that the best time of her life was when it was just you and her.” It was impossible not to hear the accusation in her voice—or the hurt.

  “Yeah, she did say that,” Olivia agreed. “But if you’re going to be any good at listening in on people’s conversations, the first thing you need to do is learn to listen to the whole thing. Because she also said the best day of her life was the day she asked your dad to marry her and he said yes. And she said that Sunday will be the best day of her life because we’re all going to be a family, and we need to be a family because you really need a big sister.”

  “Do not,” a petulant voice said.

  Lucy had come out from her shelter and was watching us, head cocked to one side.

  “Do too!” Olivia retorted. “I already told you, you suck at spying on people. And I bet you don’t know how to get ice cream out of them when Mom already said no.”

  “Roma says too much ice cream isn’t good for your teeth.”

  Olivia looked at me and smiled. “Oh, squirt, do I ever have a lot to teach you,” she said. She let out a breath. “Look, I was a brat and I’m really sorry. Please, give me another chance. I really did always want a sister.”

  We waited, and after a long moment Sydney sat up. “I always wanted a cat,” she said, looking down at Olivia.

  “Cats are good,” Olivia agreed.

  Syd shrugged. “Better than sisters.”

  Olivia laughed. “Okay. I deserved that. Now can you please come down because everyone is freaking out?”

  Sydney stood up and took a step toward us, and the board beneath her feet cracked.

  “Syd, sit down, please,” I said immediately.

  She did as I asked.

  “One of us needs to go up and get her,” I said.

  “No offense, Kathleen, but it should be me,” Olivia said. “I’m the smaller of the two of us.”

  I nodded.

  We got the ladder and set it up to the edge of the hayloft. Olivia climbed, but as soon as she put a foot on the platform there was another loud crack and her left leg went through a board.

  “Olivia!” Syd cried, reaching for her. The whole platform made a groaning sound.

  “Nobody move,” I said. The hayloft was listing to the right. The whole structure was in danger of coming down. No one had been up there in years. Syd’s weight had been enough to loosen the old boards, and Olivia’s could make everything collapse.

  “Olivia, lie down, very slowly,” I said. “It’ll spread your weight out.”

  She stretched out as directed.

  “Okay, Sydney, you too,” I called.

  “I don’t want to fall,” she cried.

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Lie down, Syd,” Olivia said. She reached a hand across the platform. Sydney grabbed it and stretched out on her stomach.

  “Good job,” I said, trying to sound reassuring even though I didn’t feel that way. “Olivia, can you pull your leg free?”

  “I think so,” she said. She shifted her weight onto her side and pulled her knee toward her chest. Her foot came free but the platform canted to the side a bit more.

  “We’re going to fall,” Sydney said.

  “No, you’re not,�
� I said. I remembered seeing a coil of rope over near the cat shelters. I spotted it and went to get it.

  “I don’t think I can climb down a rope, Kathleen,” Olivia said.

  “You won’t have to.” Lucy had disappeared. All the commotion had probably unsettled the little cat. I looked around. I needed a counterweight.

  “Syd,” I called. “I need your help.”

  “I’m scared,” she said in a small voice.

  “Me too,” I said, “but I still need your help. Lift your head just a little bit, then look around and tell me if you can see anything that looks big and heavy.”

  She lifted her head and slowly scanned the room. “I don’t see anything,” she said after a moment. My heart sank. “The only thing I see is some chain in the corner back there.”

  Chain. That might be enough. “No, that’s good,” I said. I hurried across the floor.

  The chain was rusted, covered in dust, cobwebs and animal droppings. It was forged with oversized heavy links. It just might work.

  It took all my strength to drag the length of chain so it was positioned under the beam closest to the hayloft.

  “What are you doing?” Olivia said.

  I was knotting the rope through one end of the chain. “I’m going to use the chain as a counterweight. All you have to do is fasten the rope under your arms, and I can lower you down. I can use the beam as a fulcrum.”

  “Okay,” she said. Her voice said she felt anything but.

  I tied two large knots in the other end of the rope to give it some heft. It took three tries, but I managed to throw it over the ceiling beam and catch the other end.

  “Olivia, can you tie a bowline?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She was a scuba diver. I’d figured she could.

  The platform gave another groan. I was running out of time. I couldn’t go for help. I had to do this by myself. I pushed my sweaty hair back off my forehead. “I’m throwing the end of the rope to you,” I said. “Tie a bowline. Get the rope around Sydney. I’ll do the rest.”

  I stepped a little closer and threw the rope up to her. Olivia came up on one arm and caught it on the first throw.