Love Saves the Day

I don’t think Josh knows anything about how sick she’s been feeling, though, because if he did I’m sure he would insist she go to whatever the human version of the Bad Place is. Laura probably hates the Bad Place as much as I do, and that’s why she hasn’t said anything about it.

Still, I wish Josh would notice, because Laura’s being sick is also putting her in a bad mood. Ever since that night when Josh spread all the black disks out on the floor of my room, Laura hasn’t seemed as interested anymore in coming in here to look through the Sarah-boxes with me. Still, I keep trying to think of ways to encourage her. Like this morning. I find one of the shoe boxes with Sarah’s matchbook toys and nudge it out of the big brown box so Laura and I can look through them and she can tell me things about Sarah. It’s true that once a few of the matchbooks spill out, I start batting the rest of them around, until there are matchbooks scattered all over the floor and wedged underneath some of the big boxes. But I’m pretty sure that when she sees how much fun it is to bat the matchbook toys around, she’ll want to join me.

That’s not what happens, though. Laura is walking quickly past my room, but when she sees how the matchbook toys are strewn all over the place, she stops. I nose a few hopefully in her direction, but I can tell she’s angry by her hard, rapid footsteps as she comes into the room.

“No!” she yells. “No, Prudence! Stop pushing things out of boxes and making a mess! Why can’t you just leave me alone?” She tosses the matchbook toys back into the smaller box they’re supposed to live in, then throws the whole thing into one of the bigger Sarah-boxes. She starts going around to all the boxes and folding their flaps over so that they stay closed by themselves. Then she shoves them around on top of each other until they’re all in two big stacks that are so high I can’t possibly reach the top. She’s breathing hard from her effort, and there are dots of sweat-water on her forehead.

I’ve never had my feelings hurt by a human before, but now I feel hurt—and also confused. What did I do that was so bad? What was so wrong with wanting to play with Sarah’s matchbook toys that Laura had to yell at me and put all of Sarah’s and my old things where I can’t even get to them? How will I remember Sarah enough to make her come back and always be with me if I don’t have anything to remember her with?

I stretch out all my front claws and scratch at the floor, leaving long, angry slashes in the dark wood Laura cares about so much. I had thought that she and I were becoming close, almost like maybe I was a part of the family that’s made up of her and Josh. This is what I get for forgetting I’m just an immigrant here, and that Sarah is my one-and-only Most Important Person.

Josh hasn’t made eggs for Laura in a long time, but this morning is the one-year anniversary of when they got married, and I smell the aroma of scrambled eggs coming upstairs from the kitchen. It also smells like Josh is frying bacon and pouring orange juice—all the things Laura used to like so much on Sunday mornings.

When Laura gets close to the kitchen and smells the eggs cooking, she has to run back upstairs—probably to throw up again. Josh is whistling while he cooks, so I don’t think he notices. He scoops the eggs onto plates, and then he puts a little onto a Prudence-plate that he sets on the floor. Laura’s face looks much paler than it usually does by the time she comes back to the kitchen to sit down.

Josh stops cooking long enough to come over to her seat with a plate of eggs and bacon. “Happy anniversary,” Josh says, and kisses her on the mouth.

“Happy anniversary,” she tells him, with a smile that somehow makes her face look even paler. She pushes the eggs around with her fork.

“Are you okay?” Josh asks Laura. His forehead wrinkles in concern.

Laura tries to smile again. “I’m fine,” she says. “Just not that hungry, I guess.”

“I hope you’re hungry tonight. The reservation’s at eight, so if you’re running late at work we can always meet there.”

“I’ve been thinking.” The squeaky sound of Laura’s fork scraping against the plate is too high-pitched for humans to hear, but the agonizing squeal of it makes my ears twitch until the left one nearly folds in half. “Del Posto might be a little … extravagant for us right now. Maybe we should take a pass.”

“Okay,” Josh says slowly. He sounds confused. “Did you want to go somewhere else?”

“I don’t know.” She swallows hard a couple of times, like maybe the smell of the eggs is making her feel sick again. “We can talk about it later, I guess.”

“If that’s what you want.” Laura looks down at her plate while Josh’s eyes look at her face, as if he’s seeing for the first time that something might be wrong with her. They’re both silent until Josh says, “Listen, I’ve been wanting to ask you about Anise Pierce. I was wondering if maybe you could get in touch with her.”