tranquil, he ate microwaved leftovers from a good stoneware plate, squeezed my fingers, and took off in Rick’s vehicle, leaving us alone, all without a word spoken.
Mud and I spent the rest of the afternoon upstairs in her room in the eaves, in front of the air conditioner, putting together outfits she would wear to school soon and adding to the list of clothing, supplies, and other purchases she would need in order to become Cedar Bluff Middle School’s newest green tree Giant. Even with the AC, it was hot, sweaty work, and I remembered sleeping on the second-story landing in the summers, my cot close to the top of the stairs so I could hear Leah—John’s first wife—if she called out as her illness took her slowly away from us. And then, later, so I could have privacy from John. The fans that turned continuously on both floors did little to move around the cooler air between floors, and had Mud not come from the church, she might not have been able to bear it. Churchwomen were sturdy stock and Mud seemed not to notice the trickles of sweat and the clothes that stuck to us.
As we worked, we talked about Larry, the kidnapping, his arrest, and Mud’s questions about what Larry had planned to do to me. It seemed to help us cope with the trauma of the day. When we had it all out in the open, we fell silent, working together. It was serene and quiet, a peaceful discourse.
When the clothes were put away, I took another nap, what the townies called a power nap, and I called a cat nap, for a lot of reasons. When I woke, I discovered that I had missed a visit with Occam.
Mud said, “Mr. LaFleur and Occam brung—brought—your truck back.” She added, “They was in a hurry and Occam said I wasn’t to wake you since you was asleep. Should I have waked you up anyway?”
Disappointment scurried through me on little mouse feet, but I shoved it away. “No. It’s all right. He knows his time limits. But the proper verb forms are, They were in a hurry and Occam said I wasn’t to wake you since you were asleep.”
Mud repeated me. “Townie English is hard. Can we look at the house plans?”
Carrying a tape measure, we walked through the entire upper floor, looking at the huge storage space at the top of the stairs that might become the bathroom, discussing where the fixtures would go if bathroom plumbing could be worked out. The upstairs was composed of multiple large spaces. There were two big bedrooms with low vaulted ceilings and dormers facing the front and the back of the house. On either end of the house, on the far sides of the bedrooms, were large, unfinished spaces, kept closed year-round, each with a dormer, both hotter than the armpits of hell. Currently, the unfinished space on the east side of the house held old furniture and antique chests full of John’s family’s belongings; the space on the west side was used for the solar batteries. It was a big house. It had been built for multiple wives and lots of children. With a little elbow grease, wallboard, paint, and added dormers, the rooms could become additional bedrooms. We were dreaming about spending a lot of my as-yet-unearned money, which made my belly ache just thinking about it. The unaccustomed stress of entering the modern world of debt was offset by the happiness of Mud possibly living with me.
Still dreaming, we stripped her bed and put on fresh sheets. Mud was stuffing a pillow into a pillowcase, her back to me, when she said, “Soooo … Mama met Occam.”
I dropped onto her bed, rumpling the smooth summer bedspread. “What?”
“She likes him, even though he’s a werecat.” Mud shot me a playful look. “She done invited him to church on Sunday. She quoted scripture to him and he quoted some back. Didju’un know he was the son of a preacher?”
“Yes,” I said softly. I’d heard Occam’s story, or as much as he would tell. My family knew that Occam was a werecat, and Mama had seen Occam rubbing my arms, the claiming-type touching on the church grounds. My brain waffled back and forth in near panic. I wasn’t a churchwoman anymore to be courted and claimed and treated like property by a man. But I wanted Occam. Mama would have kittens. That thought made everything inside me come to a