Page 41 of Out Of A Fix

“What if Dad says no?” Tatum asked me worriedly.

I was going to say I’ll take him with me when I go, but that would absolutely make her cry. “If you show him you guys have it all figured out, how could he say no? It’s a cat, not a St. Bernard.”

“Okay.”

“Unless he’s allergic. Is that why you don’t have a pet?”

“No, we asked for one for a long time, but he said we weren’t responsible enough, and Mom said she didn’t want cat or dog hair all over.”

I shrugged. “Who cares about hair. That’s what lint rollers are for.”

“Oh. I always wondered. I never have lint on me.”

“There you go.”

I got a big hug for that.

She had me take her out to where I buried the mama cat and the babies, and she painted a rock later on. We left it to dry overnight.

I had been in the guest room since the first night, which was on the other side of the kitchen. The view toward Lake Washington was beautiful. It was not a big room, but it was perfect for me, and the hurricane lamp on the nightstand was lovely. Wink came to check on me since I slept with my door open, and when I asked what he was doing, he jumped up on the bed to sniff around.

“If their father says no, you’re gonna like Chicago, buddy, I promise.”

Seemingly satisfied, he jumped back down and strutted out of my room. I was sure he was off to create chaos, up to no good, but he was a cat. That was his job.

SIX

Monday morning, the day before Veterans Day, I got a text from the school district that classes were canceled due to a flood advisory that quickly became a warning. I was stunned.

“When I was going to school,” I told Darwin as he put blueberry muffins in the oven, “we never missed a day due to rain. I walked through a hailstorm once.”

“I’m sure you did,” Tatum said cheerfully, patting my back.

She wasn’t actually listening to me.

When I glanced at Darwin, he smiled and nodded.

“Cool story, bro,” Griff teased me.

“You all suck,” I muttered as Tatum put my new French press down in front of me. She’d filled it and brought it over carefully, along with a carton of half-and-half and an enormous stoneware mug I had mentioned I liked and so was spared in the great purge at the yard sale. “But thank you for the coffee.”

I got a smile in return.

I’d bought the press at a store in Seattle the day the kids met their psychiatrist. Dr. Marlowe wanted to start off with Tuesdays and Thursdays. She would take Tatum and Darwin together, and Griff alone. What presented to her initially, in the joint session with Tatum and Darwin, was that their trauma was in losing their mother and abandonment. They would talk about that together, especially since the issue of not wanting to hurt one another’s feelings had been resolved. Now that they could mention their mother, she felt she’d help them more together. Griff had different issues, so he would be talking to her alone.

I figured that would work well. While the two younger kids were in with Dr. Marlowe, Griff and I could talk or whatever. While he was in, I could take Tatum and Darwin on a walkabout. Of course, the colder it got, the more interesting the strolling would get, but that would be Luke Duchesne’s problem. I’d be gone by then. And yes, I was assuming he would continue the therapy sessions, but if everything the kids had expressed to me was true, then he had wanted that for them, he just never found the time to interview doctors. Me, with my inside track of Benji having friends and colleagues all over the country, had made it easy for him. All he had to do was follow through. I sincerely hoped he would. I was cautiously optimistic.

After pouring my coffee and adding the cream, I sat there with it, inhaling the smell of bacon. Griff was getting really good at making it, and even peppered it, which I liked. When Tatum bumped me—she was sitting beside me on the bench—I turned to her.

“What’s wrong with you?”

She shook her head.

“I know you,” I reminded her.

Sucking in a quick breath, she said, “I heard what you said last night.”

“What’re you talking about?”