I don’t think of Cat as a pet that is disposable or beneath me. I think of her as an exotic, unearthly creature that I’ve captured and tamed. Far more valuable than an ordinary human.
She was so frightened by me at first.
I remember the day she saw me crying in the school bathrooms.
I had never felt rage like that. I honestly could have killed her.
Looking back on it now, I realize it wasn’t anger that drove me . . . it was shame.
“Dean?” Cat says quietly. Her head shifts slightly on my chest as she looks up at me.
“Yes?” I say.
“Why do you always want everything to be so clean and organized?”
“I like it that way. I hate mess. When something doesn’t smell good I can’t stop noticing—it nags at me, it distracts me, it drives me insane.”
“Do I smell good?” Cat asks.
“You smell better than anyone,” I tell her honestly.
“Really?” she says, pleased.
“It’s one of my favorite things about you. It’s like catnip, I can’t get enough.”
I can tell she’s smiling, even though I can only see the edge of her face illuminated by the candlelight.
That’s all I had planned to say, but relaxed and in a strangely candid mood, I find myself continuing:
“My father’s house in Moscow . . . it’s filthy. Nobody can come inside except me, and I hate being there. He didn’t use to be that way, but it’s gotten worse and worse. I can’t stand it. I’ve always been . . . ashamed of it.”
“Oh,” Cat says.
That one syllable carries so much sympathy and sadness that it pains me. I don’t want her to feel sorry for me.
“Anyway,” I say gruffly. “My house will never be like that.”
“I’d like to have a studio . . .” Cat says dreamily. “A big, open room full of sunshine, with lots of plants hanging down, greenery everywhere. That’s where I would paint.”
“You still want to be an artist?” I ask her.
Cat hesitates. “Well . . . I don’t know. But I’ll always want to draw.”
“That sketch you made of the girl by the well . . . it was beautiful. Not just beautiful . . . it made me feel things. It was the sketch that made me sure of what you’d done.”
We haven’t spoken of Rocco in several weeks.
I don’t bring it up because I know Cat feels guilty, even though she shouldn’t. It was necessary. I would have eliminated someone far more innocent than Rocco, if my sister were in danger. If I had a sister, I mean.
“Sometimes sketching is the only thing that makes me feel better about something,” Cat says softly. “That’s how I used to deal with my dad being an asshole. Well,” she laughs, “it used to be the only thing that made me feel better.”
“What do you mean?” I say.
“This has been strangely cathartic, too,” Cat says, sitting up on her elbow to look at me.
“You like it?” I say.
“I think you know that I do.”
We look at each other for a long time.
This is the most honest Cat and I have ever been.
So when she asks her next question, I feel compelled to answer, even though I never talk about this, ever.
“What about your mother?” she says.
“She left me, when I was ten years old.” I take a breath, wanting to stop, but compelled to tell her what I’ve never told anyone before. “My father was drinking. He was becoming more and more angry, and violent. Breaking things in the house. Throwing things at her. I don’t think he’d struck her yet, but he shoved her down and she hit her head on the dining room table. He regretted it afterward. He tried to pick her up, tried to apologize, but she ran and locked herself in her room and didn’t come out for hours.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cat says, her big dark eyes fixed on mine.
“They were happy once. They loved each other, and they loved me. But he was in pain. He was bitter. He drove her away. And she left. Just packed up and disappeared while he was out. She didn’t warn me. I came home from school and the house was dark and quiet . . . I knew. I just knew.”
Cat’s eyes glitter with tears. She blinks, and they run down her cheeks in parallel tracks.
“Dean . . .” she says.
“I don’t care!” I say, suddenly embarrassed that I laid open this wound for her to see.