The Catswold Portal

She looked at Braden nakedly, her eyes like a hurt child. “You know how Tom loves Pippin. That cat hardly left Tom’s room the whole time he was sick. Tom lay there with Pippin cuddled in his arms.” She began to sob again, choking, then looked up at Braden with cold anger. “This morning Tom threw an iron bookend at Pippin—threw it hard enough to kill him, it made a terrible dent in the wall. It barely missed Pippin. Tom was white with rage. When Pippin leaped away, Tom grabbed up the lamp to throw that, jerking out the cord, standing up on the bed screaming. I snatched the lamp from him and got Pippin out of the house. The look on Tom’s face, his eyes…The cold, horrible look in his eyes…”

Braden held her—he didn’t know what else to do.

“Pippin won’t even come to me now. He just runs; he won’t come near the house. I don’t blame him.”

“Maybe it’s Tom’s medicine. Could the medicine have turned him strange?”

“He hasn’t had that prescription for a week. He had Pippin on his bed last night while he ate dinner, loving and petting him. It was only this morning when I carried Pippin into his room that…Pippin tensed suddenly and stared at Tom and leaped away, clawing me and hissing. He has never done that. And the minute Tom saw him he went white and grabbed the bookend.”

“But why did Pippin hiss when you brought him in? Tom hadn’t hurt him yet.”

“I’m trying to tell you. Tom…” She set her drink down, put her face in her hands.

He knelt beside the chair, holding her hand, puzzled and upset by her lack of control.

“When Tom got sick that first night, Brade, when his fever was so high, he kept saying strange things, crazy things. But he was never like this, not like today. He seems filled with hatred suddenly—with a cold, terrifying hatred.”

“Drugs can cause mental change, Anne. Psychological change.”

“When I reminded the doctor of that, he said, Not with this drug.”

“And a drug could cause him to smell different,” Braden said reasonably. “Maybe to the cat he smells different. Maybe—Bob says…”

“I don’t want to hear what Bob says.” She glared at him, then lowered her glance. “I’m sorry. You touched a sore place. I don’t want to think about—about Tom being…”

He held her close. “I know you don’t. But if the drugs caused it, it isn’t like his father was. It’s—why don’t you…”

“Talk to Bob?” She shook her head.

“Talk to the doctor. Ask him if—”

“I told you! I did talk to him! That’s half of what’s the matter. He doesn’t believe me. He really doesn’t give a damn!” She stared at him, enraged. “I just came from talking to him. He left me so—he said there was never a case of that happening with this drug. Never. But then when I pressed him he said maybe it could happen, he simply couldn’t say. He didn’t offer any help, he didn’t offer to see Tom. He didn’t want to run any tests, he just said to wait, see what happens. He just covered himself and left me hanging. That’s what’s so terrifying, that there’s no one to understand or to help. No one to tell me what’s wrong.”

A crash cut them short. Braden remembered the cat and headed for the kitchen.

The cat was in the middle of the table ravaging a loaf of bread. Ravaging was the only word; she had shredded the wrapper and was hunched over the bread, gulping it down. She had, in the process, knocked a plate off, smashing it.

“When did you get a cat?” Anne said behind him. “Tom will—would have—would have laughed,” she said faltering.

“After all your remarks about cats. Braden, she’s hungry. You can’t feed her bread. Don’t you have any cat food?”

“It’s not my cat. I didn’t feed it the bread—can’t you see it just helped itself? I didn’t ask it in here, it’s Morian’s cat. Go call her and tell her the damned cat’s down here.” Maybe that would distract Anne. And maybe Morian could do something to help her, make her feel better.

Anne knelt and took the cat in her arms, stroking it. It relaxed against her, staring into her face coquettishly, and purring. With the cat over her shoulder like a baby, she opened the cupboard door, found a can of chicken, as familiar with his kitchen as with her own. They often fixed meals together, platonic and comfortable, Anne and Tom, Morian and Olive Cleaver.

“For Christ sake, don’t feed it my chicken. It’ll never leave. Let Morian feed it.”

“She’s starving, Brade. Look how thin she is. She needs meat.” She opened the can and dumped the boned chicken on a plate. The cat leaned out from Anne’s shoulder, her paw reaching for the plate.

He said, “That cat ate two eggs this morning, five strips of bacon, and a piece of toast. It’s had enough protein to run a polar bear. I eat that canned chicken for lunch.”

“You eat hamburger and eggs for lunch. Go call Morian yourself.” She sounded more like Anne again. She got the milk, poured some into a salad bowl, and watched tenderly as the cat slurped and gulped.

“That was the last can of chicken,” he said, watching the cat with interest. He had always thought cats were neat, silent eaters.