told their scientific names, the girls crying that they hadn’t even seen the gorillas yet.
Fiona had a key to Terrence’s apartment, but it was back at her place. She had to drop the girls off anyway—their mother was home and knew what Fiona had been going through and wouldn’t mind sparing her for an hour or two. Yale waited on the street while Fiona ran the girls inside. By the time she was back with her keys, he’d flagged down a cab.
“I’ll go in first,” Yale said on the way. “You should wait in the hall.”
“Nope, no, no, no. We’re going in together.” She asked the cabbie if he could rush. He gestured at the red light and muttered in Polish.
Yale admitted to himself, as they finally got out, as they mounted the front steps, as they climbed to the second floor, that this was a welcome distraction. It had been so long since he’d had a clear course of action, an easy decision with an obvious answer. They were going to go up there and find the cat. Or better yet, they wouldn’t find the cat.
Fiona puffed out her cheeks and stuck the key in Terrence’s lock. She stopped suddenly and knocked, put her ear to the wood. Yale held his breath, hoping she’d hear new tenants, a cleaning crew, frantic meowing. But she shook her head, turned the key.
The living room smelled horrible. Yale couldn’t remember if it was the same horrible—medicine, vomit, cat litter, sweat—as two weeks ago, or if it was something new. Terrence’s furniture was still all in place. A neatly folded sheet still lay on the couch where Yale had left it two weeks ago.
Fiona called, “Roscoe!” Quietly, like she was afraid of the answer.
Yale went to the kitchen and checked the litter box, which had indeed been used, but not as much as you’d hope. Roscoe had a double plastic bowl—food on one side, water on the other—and both halves were empty. Yale had refilled it himself the morning he left—intentionally overfilled the food side, a mountain of Meow Mix, enough to last a while. The water was the bigger issue. Yale said, “Roscoe?” He ran the faucet to see if the sound might attract him. He looked behind the garbage can, in the cupboards, beside the refrigerator. Fiona was calling still, moving through the apartment. “The toilet’s open,” she called, and Yale understood she meant the cat had a water source if it was smart enough, if it had good balance.
There were bottles of pills lined up along the kitchen windows. Painkillers, vitamins, more vitamins, old antibiotics. All half full (he shook a few), all useless. He could grab them for Julian maybe. Or himself. A spider plant wilted on the counter in a little blue pot, and Yale held it under the tap, soaked the soil. Why not.
He looked behind the garbage again. In the garbage. Out on the fire escape.
Fiona was in the doorway, her face red and wet.
In her arms she held what looked like a deflated stuffed animal. A fur pelt. Roadkill.
“He’s still breathing,” she said. “I think.”
* * *
—
In the waiting room at the vet, Yale paged through an old Life magazine with a feature on the Mafia. Fiona held a ball of Kleenex in her lap, and although she’d stopped crying she still had the hiccups, and every few minutes she heaved a single sob, leaned forward into the tissues. They’d given Roscoe a kitty IV, and the vet had promised he’d update them soon. He had so clearly considered them a couple, Yale and Fiona. He’d directed every question at both of them, even after Fiona made it clear that Roscoe was her brother’s cat. She’d told a short version of the story, said her brother had died and the cat had been neglected. “You did the right thing,” he said to both of them.
Around them in the waiting room, dogs strained against leashes and the slickness of the tile floor. A cat paced circles in its carrier. Fiona said, “So last week, I went to get a massage. And the woman goes, ‘Were you in a car accident?’” She did a Russian accent for the woman. “And I’m like, ‘No, I’m just really stressed right now.’ So like five minutes later she goes, ‘But maybe a long time ago? A car accident?’ Feel.” She put Yale’s hand on the back of her neck, and he pressed into what he’d already guessed to be muscle