The Catswold Portal

She really was thin, all bones beneath the soft fur. Tiny little bones; he hadn’t realized cats were so delicate. He must have known that once, because Alice was always petting cats on the street and he must have petted them to please her. When he stopped stroking her, the cat touched his hand with a soft white paw, wanting him to keep on. Irritated, he turned from her to look up the garden, wondering if Morian was home. He saw Anne Hollingsworth pull in, leaving her car in the drive. When he rose to make himself a drink, the cat followed him to the kitchen.

“I’m not feeding you again—forget it. Morian can feed you. Cats stay where they’re fed.” The cat sat down in the middle of the kitchen and looked up at him demandingly. He turned away, relieved at the knock on the door. Morian could get the damned beast out of here.

It wasn’t Morian, it was Anne—disheveled, red-faced from crying, her brown hair half damp and unknotted, her eyes swollen. Even her tailored suit looked limp.

“I’m sorry, Brade, but I can’t—I wouldn’t come barging in but…” She shivered and dug in her purse for a handkerchief. He put his arm around her and led her in, and handed her a clean paint rag. She blew her nose on it, then leaned bawling against him. He held her close, amazed; he’d never seen Anne cry. He’d never seen her messy and unkempt. She was the essence of the perfect professional woman.

Finally she got herself under control. Gulping back the last spasms, she stared up at him. Her face was blotched; she looked terrible. Damp hair clung to her forehead. She straightened her blouse, picked up his drink from the work table, and took a long, calming swallow.

“I’ll make myself another, come on.” He guided her toward the kitchen, like directing a small child. “Can you talk about it?”

“It’s Tom.” She leaned against the cupboard where he put her. “He’s worse. Not—not sicker. Just…I don’t know…His temperature’s gone. Two weeks of flu has left him pale and he’s lost a lot of weight. But it’s not any of that, it’s—the way he is.” She looked up at him, her eyes filled with a fear that made him stare. “He looks at me like a stranger, Brade. As if he hates me. He…” She finished her drink and accepted the refill he had ready. He had made it weak—she wasn’t a heavy drinker.

“He doesn’t look at me the same. He doesn’t speak to me the same. I could be the scrub woman. He’s…totally unresponsive. I don’t know how to describe it.” She shook her head. “Braden, I’m afraid of him. I’m afraid of my own child.”

He didn’t understand what she was saying; she wasn’t making sense. “Let me run it by you. Tom doesn’t look at you the same way. He doesn’t speak to you the same, and you’re afraid of him.”

She nodded.

“How long have you felt this way?”

“It’s not the way I feel! It’s the way he is!”

“I’m sorry, Anne. How long has he been this way?” She made him uneasy; he kept wanting to move around. He propelled her toward the studio.

She sat down, cradling her drink.

“How long?”

“This is going to sound insane. As if—as if I’m going on about nothing.”

He waited.

“It started this morning. But he’s so…”

Braden tried not to show his annoyance.

“Listen, Brade, I know how it sounds. But it’s true. He’s—it started this morning all at once. He is totally, completely different. He could be a different boy.”

“But you can’t…”

“He is so changed, Brade. As if—as if that boy up there is not my son.” Anne looked up at him, her face puffy and desperate. He felt chills; he’d never known Anne to have flights of imagination. He wondered if she’d been working extra hard or if something had happened he didn’t know about. Anne was the sensible one, always in charge of her life, perfectly groomed in her neat little business suits, able to juggle her work and care for Tom, planning things out, knowing exactly what to allow for in a given situation.

He said, “All the time Tom was sick he wasn’t like this?”

She shook her head.

“But now, today, he’s different.”

“Yes.”

“Did you call the doctor?”

“I called him and went to talk to him. I just got back. He said—he just said…to wait. To see how Tom is in a few days. See if he gets worse. Call him if he gets worse.”

Braden took her glass and went to refill it. When he got back she was sitting just as he had left her, clutching her hands together in the same way, her knuckles white. She went on talking as if she hadn’t stopped. “And the cat—he—Tom tried to kill Pippin.”