The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel - By Katrina Kittle Page 0,37
went upstairs. It was torture waiting for him to leave. I found Mr. Gerald, who’d scattered my purse’s contents across the living room, happily shredding a tampon on the couch. I cleaned up the mess, then put my purse in the microwave for safekeeping. I gave Gerald his antibiotic (accompanied by Exorcist-worthy yowls). I made an appointment with Enterprise Roofing. Finally, I could stand it no longer and walked up the stairs.
I stood in the doorway just as Bobby finished up. “Hey, Cam,” he said, his voice revealing a sense of hey-how-perfect-you’re-here. “You wanna give me a hand with this?” He picked up his computer monitor and gestured to a box that contained the keyboard, speakers, and assorted cables. “If you help me, we could do it in one trip. It’s starting to rain.”
I exhaled sharply, not really a laugh, not really a gasp. I walked down the stairs empty-handed.
Muriel pranced in and out of the open garage as I listened to Bobby take the two trips to the car. He didn’t say good-bye.
He didn’t tell me the goat was out.
I WAS AWARE OF BOBBY’S BIRTHDAY FROM THE MOMENT I woke at 3 a.m. on Saturday.
He always woke me on my own birthday with a dozen roses. He never seemed to remember, no matter how many times I’d drop it into conversation, that my favorite flowers were gladiolas.
Stop it, you’re being pathetic.
After doing the morning chores too early, I took the newspaper and went back to bed. Max snuggled up alongside me. Mr. Gerald even sat on one corner of the bed—having finally graduated from his Elizabethan collar—looking pissed, but I wasn’t fooled. He could just as easily be pissed downstairs by himself. Gingersnap had taken up camp in Gabriella’s room in protest, snuggling in my daughter’s armpit. The two cats couldn’t pass each other without hissing.
Just as the crossword was beginning to make me feel like a moron, Gabby came into my room and crawled into bed with me. My heart pounded. Was she about to tell me? If she didn’t, how long before I asked? Please, please, let me be wrong. Gingersnap followed and sat on the opposite bed corner from Gerald, both of them facing away, like gargoyles. We just lay there looking out the skylight above the bed, until I thought she’d fallen back to sleep.
“Dad wants me to come to his party,” she said. “Will it hurt your feelings if I go?”
“No! No, Gabby, no. You mustn’t think that, okay?” I rolled on my side, to brush her auburn hair off her forehead and touch the blue shadows under her eyes. “I don’t want you to feel you’re taking sides here. You should go.”
“I’m going to his apartment first,” she said, “then we’ll go to the party together. But I don’t want to act like everything is normal! I can’t pretend it’s just a birthday party. I mean, I haven’t seen him since Monday!”
“Did you tell him that?”
“No.” She made a face.
She looked up at the skylight again.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She sighed, this one irritated, not sad. “You can’t keep asking me that!”
“Sorry. What’s going on? Did you and Tyler fight?”
She shot me a look, wary. “Nothing is going on. Why are you always so dramatic?”
“You just don’t seem like yourself these days.”
“Well, my life isn’t like it used to be these days.”
The truth of her words cut like an incision. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry about that.”
We lay there in silence.
“I guess I better go feed the crew,” she said.
“I already did.”
Instead of thanking me, she snapped, “God, are you ever going to let me do my job again?”
I picked up the newspaper. “You’re welcome.”
“Whatever.” She sounded as if I’d insulted her. She didn’t huff out, though. She sat on the edge of the bed, her back to me.
No one tells you when they place that fragile, blood-tinged baby in your arms just how much shit you will take from this person. No one warns you that you will take it and take it and take it. Because you have to. You will have no choice. Because you will love them beyond all reason.
“Do you think,” she asked shyly, “that Zayna will be there?”
“I have no idea, babe.” Surely he wouldn’t be idiotic enough to invite her. Not if his daughter would be there. But . . . everything I thought I knew about Bobby had blown away in the storm.
Even though I told Gabriella I didn’t want anyone to take sides, that