Love Saves the Day

Later that night, after they came home, Laura told Josh a story about when she was fourteen, and the apartment building she and Sarah were living in got torn down. I was lying on the back of the couch, behind Laura’s head, and she reached one hand back to press my face close to hers when she talked about what happened to Honey the cat.

Josh was sitting at the other end of the couch. His eyes never left her face, and he moved closer when she got to the part about Honey and Mr. Mandelbaum, taking her hand and squeezing it tight. “I’m sorry,” he said when she was finished talking, and pressed her face to his shoulder. “Oh, Laura, I’m so sorry. But you must know,” he squeezed her hand harder, “you have to know that nothing like that is ever going to happen to us.”

“How can you know that?” Laura’s voice sounded like she was ready to cry, even though she didn’t. “How can you possibly know what’s going to happen to us?”

Josh exhaled loudly through his nose and let go of her hand, running his own back and forth across the top of his head. “You’re right. I don’t know for sure. There could be a fire or a flood. Or a freak tornado could flatten New York. But we have resources. And we have each other.” Laura was staring down at her hands while Josh said all this, and he fell silent until she looked up into his face. “Nothing like that is ever going to happen to us, or to our child.”

Laura didn’t say anything. She leaned her head back against the couch, her hair brushing against my whiskers, and Josh put his arm around her again. He held her until her eyes closed, and she and I both settled into a peaceful sleep.

Two days later, at breakfast, Josh’s forehead is knotted, like he’s thinking hard about something. He fiddles with the twisty-tie from the loaf of bread he made his toast from, and when I stretch up one paw to reach for it, he drops it onto the ground in front of me so I can pick it up and toss it into the air. I chase it into the corner behind the kitchen table, where it tries to hide from me. Laura and Josh watch. “I have to tell you something,” Josh finally says.

Laura’s body stiffens a little. “Okay.” Her voice sounds deeper than usual, the way a human’s voice sounds when they’re nervous but trying not to sound that way.

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls since the Times article came out,” he tells her. “Magazines and other papers that want to do follow-up stories, things like that. I’ve also been hearing from a lot of the artists who’ve recorded in the music studio over the years. Some of them are pretty big names.” He pauses. “Anise Pierce called last night after you went to bed. She read the article, too. She wants to come out here and help.”

Laura’s left hand, which has been resting in her lap, rises onto the table. She drums two fingers against it. From underneath the table, where I’m sitting with my twisty-tie, I can hear the light thump thump of fingers against wood. “Anise,” she repeats. “Anise Pierce wants to come here, all the way from Asia, to help save a music studio she hasn’t set foot in for thirty years.” I think Laura may be asking a question, although I can’t be sure. Her voice doesn’t go higher at the end of what she says the way human voices usually do when they’re asking a question.

“She’s in California now,” Josh tells Laura. “She got back a few weeks ago. To be honest, I think she wants to come out here to see you more than Alphaville.”

Laura doesn’t say anything right away, although I can see her toes curl up inside her socks. At last she says, “You said yourself that all kinds of people have been coming forward since the Times article ran. Do you really need Anise’s help?”

“Maybe it would be good for you to see her again,” Josh says. “How many people knew your mother as well as she did?”

“Let’s talk about it later.” Laura pushes back her chair and stands. “Right now I want to do some grocery shopping, and I’m not sure I have anything to wear outside that still fits me.”

Laura has been getting fatter lately, probably because she sleeps a lot more and stopped drinking coffee. She pauses in the doorway and, without turning around, says to Josh, “You can call Anise and tell her to come if she wants.”

Laura walks up the stairs, and I follow her. If she’s unsure about what clothes to wear, she’ll want my opinion, the way Sarah always did.