Curiosity Killed The Cat Sitter

Michael grunted and put another glob of butter on the griddle next to the frying bread. As soon as he turned the beaten egg into it, he sliced transparent shards of Parmesan on top and started lifting and turning it with a spatula. All that golden brown fried bread and dark red ham and bright yellow eggs was making my taste buds itch. I got forks and knives and hurried to pour more coffee to replace what I’d drunk.

Michael topped the ham slices with scrambled eggs, flopped the fried bread on the side, and slid the plates onto the bar. We sat side by side and dug in, neither of us speaking until we’d finished eating. Then Michael got up and refilled our coffee mugs and sat down with a sigh.

“I wish you weren’t involved in this, Dixie.”

“I wish I weren’t, too, but maybe I’m supposed to be. Maybe this is how I’m supposed to start getting my life back together.”

“How? By finding dead people and a kid beaten up?”

“Guidry said something yesterday that may be true. He said I couldn’t hide forever. I can’t, you know? I have to come out some time and start living again.”

“Hell of a way to come out.”

“This morning when I was coming home, there was a wedding party just leaving the Summerhouse. The bride and groom were so happy and young, you know? Just looking at them made me wish I could turn back the clock and be that innocent again.”

“Feeling jealous?”

“I guess so, a little.”

“Of what, that they were happy and young, or that they were in love?”

“Don’t start that, Michael.”

He raised his hands, all innocence. “Start what? I just asked a question.”

I got up and carried our plates to the sink and rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. Michael came behind me and squeezed my shoulders.

“Go take a nap,” he said. “You look like shit.”

I turned and hugged him hard, my love for him a shining sun in my heart.

Nineteen

I slept in the porch hammock until almost three o’clock, and woke up feeling dehydrated but less fragmented. I’m always relieved and grateful to find myself sane when I wake up, because for a long time I wasn’t. For the first year after Todd and Christy were killed, I was a mess. Too tired to breathe, with every cell in my body bruised and aching. My nose ran for an entire year, and I barely had the energy to wipe it. I slept whole days, and when I was awake, I stared at the TV without changing stations. Just watched whatever was on, because I couldn’t absorb words anyway. I didn’t dress or bathe. Didn’t answer the phone. I would go for days without eating and then have a giant pizza delivered and eat it all at one sitting.

Michael and Paco tried to get me to eat, to get out of my house, to wake up, but I couldn’t. I just flat couldn’t. Then one day in the spring, when Todd and Christy had been gone a full year, I caught sight of myself in the bedroom mirror and stopped cold. I looked awful. I looked unhealthy. I looked like a wraith. If Todd could have seen me, he would have said, “For God’s sake, Dixie, what good is this doing?” If Christy could have seen me, she would have been afraid of me, I looked that scary.

That was a turning point. I got myself and my house cleaned up and went out and got my hair cut. I sold the house where I’d been so happy with Todd and Christy, and got rid of all the furniture. I donated Christy’s toys to Goodwill, except for her favorite, a purple Tickle Me Elmo, who now sits on the pillows of my bed, fat and silly. When I look at his goofy face, I hear Christy’s laughter spilling out like silver coins. I suppose I will keep Elmo with me forever. More than Christy’s photos, and even more than my memories of her, Elmo keeps her close and keeps me sane. Mostly.

For a while, I thought I might like to move away from the key and all its memories, but Michael and Paco talked me into taking the apartment over the carport, and I’m glad they did. This is where my heart is. It’s where I belong. Now occasional rips in the fabric of reality come when I least expect them. I can be going along minding my own business, attending to responsibilities, bathing and dressing and feeding myself like a normal person, and then one day I’ll see Todd walking down the sidewalk ahead of me. I’ll know it’s him, the same way I recognize my own reflection in a mirror. It’s his hair, his shoulders, his long legs. I know his walk, the way he swings his arms a little off rhythm with his steps. I’ll open my mouth to shout to him, my heart flowering with a burst of pure joy, and then he changes into somebody else—a man I don’t know at all, a man totally unlike Todd, and I am weak-kneed and dizzy with disappointment and fear.