Where the Forest Meets the Star - Glendy Vanderah Page 0,23
pots and pans on the stove. He set the plate on the table and pulled out a chair.
“Are you sure?” Jo said. “My boots are making a mess of your floor.”
“Nonsense,” Katherine said. “My husband used to say log cabins don’t look authentic without some dirt on the floor.”
“A philosophy that worked well for a kid who was always covered in dirt,” Gabe said.
Jo wondered if he’d been raised by his grandparents. Earlier he’d said his mother was sick. Maybe she had a long-term illness, something that had incapacitated her since he was a child.
Jo sat down, cut into the tender braised meat, and swallowed a delicious bite of seasoned pork chop. “This cabin is beautiful,” she told Katherine. “Was it here when you bought the property?”
“Arthur—my husband—and some of his friends built it,” she said. “George Kinney, the man who owns the property you’re renting, helped, too. He and my husband were great friends, you know.”
“I didn’t,” Jo said.
“They met as undergraduate roommates at the University of Illinois. After graduate school, they ended up in Illinois again. My husband taught English literature at the University of Chicago, and I’m sure you know George is an entomologist at the University of Illinois.”
“Yes,” Jo said. She glanced at Gabe, noting he’d been watching her from the kitchen. Now she understood some of his mysteries. The grandfather who’d raised him was a literature professor. That explained his connection to Shakespeare and maybe the reason he’d reacted to Ursa’s PhD question. Gabe self-consciously looked away from her gaze and put a plastic container into the refrigerator. “Did Dr. Kinney or your husband buy land down here first?” Jo asked Katherine.
“Arthur and I bought first. We wanted a refuge from the city, and Arthur had dreamed of building a log cabin since he was a boy. George and his wife bought the property next door when it went up for sale a few years later. George loved that he could study his aquatic insects in Turkey Creek, just steps away from his door.”
“How old were your kids when you built the cabin?” Jo asked.
“When we finished it, Gabe wasn’t born yet and his sister was in high school.” She smiled at Jo’s confusion. “I suppose you thought I was Gabe’s grandmother?”
Jo was too embarrassed to admit it.
“Gabe is what they used to call a ‘change-of-life’ baby,” Katherine said. “I had him when I was forty-six and his father was forty-eight. His sister is nineteen years older than him.”
“Is your father still living?” Jo asked Gabe.
Before her son answered, Katherine said, “Arthur died two years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Jo said.
“He was fit as could be,” Katherine said, “but an aneurysm took him unexpectedly.”
Ursa had been listening to the conversation, but she ran into another room when Jo dug into her meal. She returned with a paper in her hands. “I have three names so far,” she told Gabe. “Do you want to hear them?”
“Absolutely.” He sat in a chair facing her.
“One of the boy kittens has to be Hamlet.”
“He may come to a sad fate,” Gabe said.
“I know. I read what happened to him,” Ursa said, “but Hamlet is an important person.”
“He is,” Gabe said. “Which one will be Hamlet?”
“The gray one, because gray is kind of a sad color.”
“Makes sense,” Gabe said.
“The white kitten will be Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. I really like that name.”
“So do I,” Gabe said. “But Juliet had a sad fate, too.”
“Stop saying that! These are just names!”
“You’re right. After all, Juliet famously asked, ‘What’s in a name?’ What else do you have?”
“Macbeth.”
“Okay, and no comments on his fate. Which kitten?”
“The black-and-white one.”
“You’ve been busy. That covers three of Shakespeare’s best plays.”
“I looked that up—which plays are most important. Next is Julius Caesar. But don’t you think ‘Julius’ will be too much like ‘Juliet’?”
“You could call him Caesar.”
“Maybe. But first I have to read about him so I know which kitten matches the name.”
“It’s not good . . . fate-wise, I mean.”
Ursa pressed her lips in exasperation, and Gabe swiped his hand over a smile.
Jo loved it. They were already like old friends, playing off each other’s humor.
“Maybe you should move on to the comedies,” Gabe said.
“She should move on home,” Katherine said. “Will you take her or will Jo?”
Gabe glanced nervously at Jo. “We hadn’t discussed that yet.”
“Her parents must be frantic by now,” his mother said.
“They aren’t,” Ursa said. “They’re happy I’m here because I’m getting my PhD.”