Chapter 10

Lee

Okay, Kits & Cups wasn’t quite paradise. They needed a barista with a more generous hand with the caramel and whipped cream to hit heavenly status. But they had a bunch of rescue cats running around, so that got them close.

Griffin bent sideways in his chair to pick up a half-grown ginger kitten that had been clawing at his knee. “Who are you, little man?”

“That’s Jack,” a passing server said. “Because he climbs everything. Like Jack and the beanstalk?”

“Jack.” Griffin held the kitten up to look him in the eyes. “My leg is not a beanstalk.”

The kitten merowped at him, wriggled hard enough to force Griffin to set him down, then dashed off across the floor. Halfway to one of the many climbers, a fluffy black cat pounced on Jack and they rolled around a moment before walking off in opposite directions, tails twitching.

“I always wanted a cat,” Griffin told me. “Mom said she was allergic, although I think she just didn’t want to deal with the hair. Then, once I had a place of my own, I kept hoping I’d start touring, which wouldn’t be fair on a cat.”

Or a boyfriend? But my past bitterness felt stale and old. Yeah, he left me, but he asked me to come with him. Yeah, he said no when I asked him to stay, but I said no too. Yeah, it was a really rough time for me to lose his support, but we hadn’t committed to anything. We’d been wrong place, wrong time , and somewhere in the last twenty years, I’d apparently gotten the fuck over it. Well, mostly. Not enough to take that risk again, but enough I could grin and say, “Maybe you could take a cat along on the road. A small, mellow one, anyhow.”

“A few artists tour with pets, but mainly if they have the entourage to take care of it. Touring the way the rest of us plebes do it is no life for a cat or dog.”

“But you love the life.” The stories he’d told, good and bad, had all been infused with how present he’d been in that experience.

“I did.” He bent to stroke the head of a tuxedo longhair stropping her cheeks against his shins. “Still do, some, but it’s harder when the crowds are getting smaller and the venues farther between. When you’re first building your audience and you screw something up, there’s that feeling of I’ll do better next time . Now, I feel like every time I’m less than perfect, the fans that walk away won’t be back.”

“Didn’t you say you’re doing Rocktoberfest this year? That’s not what I’d call a small audience.”

“No, but I got in kind of sideways. The organizers asked a few top bands to name someone they considered a mentor, like nostalgia or something. Chaser Lost nominated me. They’ll play a headliner spot, third from last on Sunday, and I have a short slot right before them. Pete Lebraun will introduce me.”

“That doesn’t sound sideways. Rocktoberfest wouldn’t have invited you if they thought the audience wouldn’t want to hear you.”

“I guess. There’s like, sixty or seventy thousand fans there on the weekend nights. Great exposure.” He shrugged. “But I don’t know. Ten years ago, five years ago even, I was inviting new bands to tour with me, open my show. Now I’m back to hoping for that invite from someone else. And if the audience likes me enough for say, Pete to suggest we tour together again? I don’t have a band anymore. The folks the label put behind me for my last tour are busy with other gigs. I’m fifty-six years old. Maybe it’s time to think about doing something else with my life.”

“What, though?” I couldn’t imagine Griffin doing anything except music. He’d had a day job when we met, doing construction work, but that’d always been just to pay the bills.

“I can still write songs for other people. I’ve sold some over the years. Maybe teach guitar, I don’t know.” He took a long swallow of his iced tea.

“Don’t borrow trouble,” I told him, ignoring the complicated feeling in my gut at the idea of Griffin the music teacher settled in a home with a cat and a day job and maybe one day a partner. “Have fun at Rocktoberfest and see what happens.”

“If my parole officer lets me go.”

“You think he won’t?” I’d almost forgotten that having Griffin in my life five days a week was supposed to be punishment for him. That he needed to beg permission to cross a state line.

“He likes to tell me what to do, but no, as long as I don’t screw anything up, I think he’ll be okay with it. He knows I can use the money.” Griffin drained his glass. “Enough serious stuff. Which cat would you take, if you could adopt one?”

“Just one?” I laughed and looked around the room. Cats snoozed on perches and lurked inside climbers and sat in the big front windows, watching the people and cars go by. “I never had a cat as a kid either. Alice was allergic. Now? Something mellow, maybe. A cat that would be happy to just snooze in my lap and eat treats. I’m pretty wiped out by the end of the day. I couldn’t handle a high-energy cat like Jack.” As I spoke, the orange kitten leaped from a perch onto a fluffy white cat, then raced off across the room with the white cat in pursuit.

“Willow, then,” the server said as they paused by our table, a loaded tray in hand. “Or Santa. Or Mango. He’s pretty chill, if you don’t mind a cat that drools when you pet him.”

“Which one’s Willow?” Griffin asked.

The server gestured with their chin, setting their long hair swinging. “That tortoiseshell on the green climber. You can pick her up. She likes it.”

“Stay there,” Griffin told me. He pushed back his chair, crossed the room, and spent a moment introducing himself to the dozing tortoiseshell. Then he scooped her up, brought her over, and set her on my knees. “There you go. Lap buddy.”

I stroked the cat’s soft cheeks and ran my fingers over her ears. She head-butted my hand when I stopped, and purred like a chainsaw, her soft body vibrating against my legs. I kept petting her, whispering baby talk. She half-closed her eyes.

Griffin sprawled in his chair watching me. “I think she likes you.”

“She’s a cutie. I don’t know what Mom would say.” I ran my fingers down Willow’s back and she arched into my touch. “Although it might not be a bad thing for Mom to have a pet in the house. I get my taking-care-of-everyone genes from Mom. When Alice got sick, she focused everything on her, and since then, well… a cat might not be a bad idea.”

“I didn’t bring you here to pressure you into rescuing a stray,” Griffin protested. “Although knowing you, maybe that was inevitable.”

I kept stroking Willow, the rhythm soothing us both. “We have therapy dogs come to Wellhaven sometimes. I should’ve thought of it for Mom sooner.” Not a dog, with the demands that would make on her, but a cat. This cat, maybe, who only shifted position to stretch out more bonelessly across my lap. “What do you think, Willow? Would you like to be spoiled within an inch of your life and brighten Mom’s days?”

Willow purred louder.

“If you mean it, we can ask about their adoption procedure,” Griffin suggested.

People said you should never get a pet on the spur of the moment, but the more I thought about it with Willow vibrating under my hands, the more sense a cat made. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

We’d paid for our drinks when we got them, so I eased Willow into my arms and got up. Griffin led the way to the front and asked the young woman behind the counter, “These cats are all looking for homes, right? What’s the procedure to adopt one?”

Her face brightened. “Yes, part of our mission is to find loving homes for them, as well as to brighten the days of people who can’t have a cat. We start with a home survey form you fill out.” She pulled a clipboard out from under the counter and set it in front of him.

“Here.” Griffin turned to me. “Give me your fur baby and you write.”

I had most of the info filled in when a middle-aged man hustled up to us, his attention on Griffin. “Hi, I’m Quentin. I run Kits & Cups. Are you Griffin Marsh?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, wow, that’s cool.” Quentin’s wide-eyed enthusiasm took years off his face. “That’s awesome. Are you thinking about adopting one of our cats? That’s Willow. She’s the sweetest giant ball of fluff you could ever meet.”

“She’s cute, for sure.” Griffin lifted her against his bearded cheek and she blinked, unfazed.

“Can I…” Quentin fumbled out his phone. “Would it be okay if I took a picture of you with the cats? For promo? I can’t pay you anything to use your name.”

“I don’t need to be paid,” Griffin said. “I’d love to help. But you do know, my name isn’t exactly clean these days after that distracted driving conviction. There might be better celebrities you could ask.”

“I’m a huge fan,” Quentin told him. “Everyone makes mistakes.” I could see that Griffin wanted to protest, to point out how awful his mistake was, but Quentin barreled on. “I’d love to have you pose with a few cats. We could put the pics on social media, maybe print a poster for the café window.”

“I could do a benefit concert in here some evening,” Griffin offered. “If it wouldn’t disturb the cats. Maybe just the soft acoustic stuff and we could tell everyone not to clap.”

“Oh my God.” Quentin practically bounced up and down. “That would be incredible. I could take the shy ones home for the evening.”

“We’ll talk about it,” Griffin said. “You want some pictures? Maybe with the menu board behind me?”

I watched, smiling, as Griffin posed for a dozen shots with Willow, full face, then profile, then kissing her furry forehead. Then Quentin suggested a couple of other cats and Griffin passed Willow to me. “That’s too damned cute,” I murmured into her soft tortoiseshell fur as Griffin held up a matched pair of half-grown tuxedo kittens for more pics, then posed with a regal ginger tom. “There should be some law against the guy you’re trying to resist doing uber-cute things with cats.”

“He is pretty hot for his age, isn’t he?” the woman behind the counter murmured. “Silver fox.”

“Too damned true.”

“He seems really nice, too.”

“Yeah.” Then I chanted “But he’ll be leaving” a few times in my head as a reminder. Some of the patrons had figured out who Griffin was, and he’d begun signing napkins and drink receipts with a sleek black cat in the crook of one arm. When the cat wiggled, he set her down and smiled at her tail-flicking departure across the floor before turning to the next fan.

“What else do I need to do for the adoption?” I asked the woman working the counter.

“We run a background check and call your references, and then if everything looks good—”

“Oh, no,” Quentin said beside me. “I mean, yeah, that’s our normal procedure. But if you’re Griffin Marsh’s boyfriend then I hardly have to worry about that stuff.”

“I don’t want to jump the queue,” I protested, although I totally wanted to bring Willow home with me right away. “And we’re just friends.”

“Whatever. Plus.” He’d picked up my form and glanced through it. “You’re a nurse working with the elderly. If folks can trust you with their grandmother, I can trust you with a cat. We do a one-week follow-up visit anyhow, so it’s not like I’m being reckless. Unless your home isn’t ready.”

“I’ll need to buy a litterbox and stuff, but that should be easy.” I gave in, peering down into Willow’s green eyes. “Do you want to come home with me? Prepare to be spoiled.”

“But don’t let her get more overweight,” Quentin lectured, diving into three verbal paragraphs of ideal cat care, and ending, “We have a folder for you with her health records and all that info written down. She’s lost two pounds with us, and she needs to continue to slim down. Let me get that from the office.”

He hustled off to the back as Griffin shook one last hand and then ambled my way. “So, what do you think? Putting your name down for Willow?”

“Quentin’s letting me take her today.”

“Ooh, pet toy shopping coming up. The only kind of shopping I enjoy.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Not clothes? What kind of gay man are you?”

“The kind still wearing the beret he got in France on his first ever world tour, and the T-shirt he borrowed from a friend in some second-rate motel in 2007?”

“That’s why it fits so damned good,” I said, before realizing how that sounded. “I mean, it’s a little thin and tight, compared to your usual.” And I don’t hate that.

Griffin chuckled. “Yeah, I figured we were cleaning out a storage unit and not going to be seen in public.”

“No one’s complaining,” the young woman behind the counter murmured, then gave Griffin an innocent look when he turned her way.

Quentin hustled over with a cardboard carrier, a small bag of cat food, and a manila envelope. I signed papers, with Griffin insisting on covering the adoption fee and a donation besides. Then Miss Willow deigned to enter the carrier for a little tuna snack. I brought the car around to the front, we got in, and we were on our way.

Griffin sat on the passenger side with Willow’s box in his lap. “What’s your mom going to say?”

“‘You adopted it, you clean the litterbox’?” I huffed a laugh. “Not sure. But either way, I want Willow. I think Mom will resist her charms for all of twelve and a half seconds.”

“Do you want to drop me off before you bring her home?”

“Hell, no. I need you to take my side and convince Mom that the pathos of all those poor homeless cats overwhelmed me and I did the right thing.”

“I’ll try.” Griffin hummed a note, then sang, “ Every kitty in that café, Needs a home beneath their feet, And our fluffy little Willow, Is the sweetest you will meet. ”

“Don’t give up your day job,” I told him. “Wait, that is your day job.”

“Everyone’s a critic.” Griffin spoke down to Willow. “You liked it, didn’t you? Cats have good taste.”

Willow purred loud enough to be heard above the engine.

“You should get a cat too,” I told Griffin.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to let anyone else down. If I somehow screw up and break my parole, I could bounce straight into prison. I don’t want anyone depending on me.”

That should’ve been a good reminder to keep my distance, but instead it made me mad. “You won’t screw up. You’re not going to prison. You’ll make amends and then you’ll shine like a fucking star again. All those people in the café? They know that.”

“Nice to think so.”

I wanted to reach out to him but kept my hands on the wheel.

He shifted the carrier on his knees and pulled out his phone. “Okay, shopping list. With a litterbox and litter at the top. Then what?”

“Dishes, food. Check the envelope and see what she was eating.” Practicalities were good. A distraction from worrying about Griffin. He was a grown man and could look after himself.

When we got home, I took the carrier from Griffin and led the way into the house. “Hey, Mom?” I called as we headed down the hallway from the garage. “I brought guests.”

“Lee! You should’ve given me time to clean up.” Mom met us in the kitchen, where one plate with a few crumbs was all that marred the clean surfaces. “Oh, Griffin. Nice to see you again.” She glanced at me. “You said guests ? Is someone else here?”

I set the carrier on the floor and opened the top. “Mom, meet Willow.” My cat sat up on her hind legs, peering out of the carrier and twitching her ears, cute as hell.

“Oh.” Mom dropped limply into a chair. “It’s a cat.”

“Yes.” I eyed her, wondering at her reaction. “You like cats.”

“We can’t have a cat.”

“Why not, Mom?”

I saw her lips shape the word “Alice” but she said nothing, just stared blankly into space.

Griffin murmured, “Shall I head out and get some litter and food and things? While you talk to your mom?”

“Sure. Thank you.” I dug in my pocket. “Here, take my car— Crap, you can’t.”

“Right. But I have three rideshare apps on my phone and two taxi companies. I’m good.” He squatted beside the carrier and rubbed Willow’s cheeks, his gaze averted from Mom. “You be a good girl, Willow. It’ll be okay.”

When he’d gone, Willow hopped out of the box and began exploring.

Mom stared down at her hands, clasped together in her lap.

I scooped up the cat and sat cross-legged in front of Mom. Willow seemed quite willing to have her rambles exchanged for a lap and some petting. “Alice would want you to have a cat now you can,” I said, which was perhaps unfair but also the total truth. “I want a cat. Willow needs a home and family, and there’s something about stroking a purring feline that pulls stress out of the human body.” As Willow purred louder, I looked up at Mom. “Want to hold her?”

For several moments, I thought Mom might say no. Then she unknotted her hands and nodded. I set Willow on Mom’s knees, where she purred happily, her eyes half closed under my stroking hands. I eased back. Willow’s eyes popped open. The rumbling motor faded and her small ears twitched back and forth.

“Oh, sweetie.” Mom took over, stroking Willow’s soft cheeks and head. “Pretty girl, you’re safe here.”

Willow purred for her just as happily. Mom petted her for a minute, then met my eyes. “But you have to clean the litterbox.”

I nodded, not sure why those simple words had my eyes brimming over. “Yes, Ma.”

“Don’t you Ma me.” Looking back down at Willow, Mom added, “And maybe, maybe it’s time for me to try that medication you suggested.”

“The anxiety med?” I held my breath.

“Yes. That one. I want… I want to feel happy about things like a cat, not just this… blank nothing.” She watched her own fingers sliding through long black and orange fur.

“I hope it helps. I’ll call it in right away.” I kept my tone calm and low, although I wanted to jump up and down and shout. Meds weren’t the whole answer at all, but a good first step. Maybe enough to give Mom the calmness to talk to someone. Even just a sign she was ready to let someone help. I cleared my throat. “So we’re keeping Willow?”

“You were like that as a boy.” Mom sat straighter as Willow jumped down to resume her home inspection. “Always bringing home critters in need of help. That baby bird that fell out of its nest and the rabbit and that classmate of yours with the too-small shoes. The squirrel.”

“That one was dead,” I recalled.

“But you wanted to heal it. And you cried.” She met my gaze. “You’re a good man, Lee. Always have been. I leaned too much weight on you those first years after your father left.”

“No, I was glad I could help. I wanted to.”

“I know. But you didn’t get to be young and carefree.”

“I wouldn’t give up one minute of time with you and Alice for being carefree,” I insisted. Sure, there’d been times I’d felt anchored down by my responsibilities. Now, though, I had no regrets. Life was too fucking short.

“And now I’ve been leaning on you again, more than I should for the last six years.”

I said, “I love you,” but couldn’t deny that. I’d never blamed her, though. Brain chemistry was a bitch.

“The least I can do is listen when you give me good advice.” She managed a crooked smile. “And give a home to your cat.”

Willow raised her head as if hearing what Mom said, then trotted across the room and jumped back up to her lap.

“Our cat,” I suggested.

“Okay.” Mom’s smile improved.

I stood and went behind her, bending to wrap my arms around her shoulders. As I hugged her and watched her hands caressing Willow, a little more hope took root.