Joe stared silently at her, his heart starting a staccato beat against his ribs. A studio? Clyde has no use for a studio. Why are you telling me? Why are you talking to me?
“Would that be all right with you?” Ryan said.
Joe tried not turn tail and run, or to look terrified. He sat down and washed his left-front paw. Ryan knelt, pulling Clyde’s robe closer around her, and tried to look him in the eye. Joe wouldn’t look at her; he concentrated on his paw.
“Come on, Joe. Did you think I was out cold when you made that call to dispatch? To Mabel Farthy? When you said, ‘Thank God it’s Mabel’?”
Joe looked at her a long time, his heart pounding so hard he felt like he had a herd of drunken mice dancing inside his chest.
“With a concussion,” Ryan said, “it takes a while for a person’s memory to come back. The length of time varies. In my case, it didn’t take long.”
Joe remained safely silent, deeply occupied with his grooming. This was terrible. This was a major crisis. Why the hell wasn’t Dulcie here? She’d know how to handle this woman.
Ryan reached to stroke his ear, but then she drew her hand back. “Joe, I heard Dulcie say, ‘Her cell phone!’ and then Kit raced away. Then, in just a minute, you had Mabel on the line. You said, ‘Thank God it’s Mabel,’ then, ‘Stanhope mansion…’ and then something about thieves hitting me with a hammer.” Ryan smiled. “You told Mabel I was out cold.”
Joe abandoned his pretense at grooming and openly gawked at her.
“Well, of course I kept my eyes shut,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was hearing. Talking cats? I thought I was in really bad shape, having really crazy delusions.”
Joe gave her a look that said he understood. But he wasn’t willing to answer. He could only swallow, his throat as dry as if he’d just eaten feathers.
“It will take a while for us both to get used to this,” Ryan said, rising. “I can understand that.” She looked solemnly down at Joe. “Never fear, tomcat. I’ll keep my mouth shut. This is not the kind of secret I would ever share with the department. Or,” she said, “with anyone in my family.” And she turned away and headed downstairs, giving him space, following the enticing aroma of pancakes and bacon.
It took Joe some time to recover sufficiently to follow her. He strolled into the kitchen, where breakfast sat on the stove keeping warm. No one was there but the three household cats eating from their bowls on the rug. From the living room he heard voices. He wandered in, trying to look casual.
Ryan and Clyde were sitting on the floor before the lighted Christmas tree eating chocolates from a box that Ryan had apparently just unwrapped. Ryan looked at Joe, and held out her hand to him. The sparkle of the diamond ring on her finger reflected the colors of the Christmas lights. Third finger, left hand. A ring that had not been there yesterday evening when Clyde brought her home from the hospital, and had not been there a few minutes ago, upstairs, when she knelt talking to him. The empty ring box lay beside the open box of chocolates.
Joe would hear, later, how Clyde had gone shopping before he picked Ryan up at the hospital, would hear all about Clyde’s agonized thoughts that had accompanied this decisive move, how Clyde had wanted to ask Wilma to help pick out the ring, wanted a woman’s opinion. Or maybe Charlie. Or Ryan’s sister, Hanni-except that Hanni’s taste ran to pizzazz and dazzle, and that wouldn’t suit Ryan. Joe would hear about how Clyde thought, should he ask Joe first, to make sure it was okay? And should he buy a ring? Or should he just ask Ryan first, and pick out the ring together? Was he sure he wanted to do this? And how would this go down with Joe Grey? Clyde would tell Joe how, when he’d thought about not asking her, a terrible loneliness had gripped him, an emptiness that he had never before experienced.
Clyde did not usually share his dilemmas so freely. Joe would listen patiently to all the mental suffering involved in this commitment; he would hear how, after Clyde had bought the ring, he debated about whether to keep his secret from everyone, in the event that, after all, he would be obliged to return his purchase.
But now the deed was done, and apparently the ring had been accepted, the decision had been made by both parties, and this early Christmas morning, beside the Christmas tree, Joe Grey looked at Ryan, and she looked at him. And the two of them shared a secret that even Clyde didn’t yet know. There they were, the three of them sitting beside the Christmas tree. Joe and Ryan looking at each other. Clyde looking from Ryan to Joe, puzzled-and it was then that Rock bounded in through the dog door, from the back patio, skidded through the kitchen, and crashed into them, licking their faces, licking Joe Grey in the face as happily as if the big hound had a new toy for Christmas.
We’ll see about that, Joe thought, pushing away Rock’s nose with a velvet paw.
But for a long time afterward, that moment would remain frozen in Joe Grey’s memory like some treasured family photograph. He and Ryan and Clyde and Rock, on this early Christmas morning, all together before the Christmas tree, frozen in time as permanently as the preserved images from Pompeii-a Christmas memory to last, perhaps, for all his nine lives.
And then Clyde raised his coffee cup in a toast. “Merry Christmas, Joe. Merry Christmas, Ryan. And Rock. Merry Christmas to all of us, to a brand-new family.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The word hound is used to denote dog, not to imply that the Weimaraner is a member of the hound group; this breed is a member of the sporting group.
About the Author
SHIRLEY ROUSSEAU MURPHY has received seven national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year, two Cat Writers’ President’s Awards, the “World’s Best Cat Litter-ary Award” in 2006 for the Joe Grey Books, and five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards for previous books. She and her husband live in Carmel, California, where they serve as full-time household help for two demanding feline ladies.
www.joegrey.com
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