“Come in,” Hattie said, then stepped back and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Come in, both of you. She’s in her room.”
“How is she?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” Hattie closed the apartment door and shot Grady a look so knowing it made me laugh.
“Have you two been conspiring?”
She smiled. “Me and Grady are old friends, by now.”
He nodded. “We grew up not ten miles apart, did you know that, Bennie? Hattie grew up near the Georgia border, and I was born in Murphy, right over the line.”
Hattie tugged at my arm. “We had ourselves a nice long talk on the telephone. Now let’s go see your momma. She’s awake.”
Grady took my other arm. “Come on, Bennie. I want to meet her.”
I let them yank me along only reluctantly. “Do we have to do this now? What do I say to her? Sorry I sent you to-”
“Say what comes natural,” Hattie said. Bear trotted at the heels of her scruffy bedroom slippers as she and Grady tugged me through the living room. “Did you know your momma knew all about Mark’s murder?”
“She did?”
“Said you told her all about it, at night.” We reached my mother’s door, which was slightly ajar, and Hattie pressed it open.
“My God,” I heard myself say, the sight was so unexpected.
A soft morning breeze blew through the open screen, billowing through the curtains. The room was bright and smelled fresh, only faintly floral. My mother sat in a chair by the bed, still as calm water, reading a newspaper. JOINT VENTURE, said the headline above photos of Renee and Eve. My mother’s hair had been combed into neat waves, and she wore slacks and a pressed white blouse. She seemed not to see me standing at the threshold in wonder.
“Is she…cured?” I whispered.
“No, but she’s gettin’ there,” Hattie said softly. “Carmella, honey,” she called, “see who’s come home.”
My mother looked up from the paper and her brown eyes opened slightly in surprise. “Benedetta.”
Her voice struck a chord, buried deep. No one but my mother called me Benedetta, and I felt the sound reverberating inside me. Resonating within my chest. Calling me to dinner, or from play. To climb onto her lap. Benedetta.
“Benedetta, you’re free,” she said.
My eyes stung. A lump appeared in my throat. My heart lifted. She didn’t know how right she was, and neither did I.
Until now.
41
Mahogany bookshelves stocked with Supreme Court reporters surrounded the huge, still office. His desk was an English lowboy, bare except for a Waterford cup that held a flock of white quills. Three telephones sat on the various polished surfaces, but they hadn’t rung all morning. There wasn’t a computer in sight, but there was a box of Godiva chocolates on the coffee table. Next to a kitten.
“She’s a cute one,” Grun said. We sat together on a couch covered with navy damask.
“And she’s already litter trained.” I didn’t mention she preferred legal briefs. I was pushing my luck as it was.
“She reminds me of my Tiger. She has a similar color fur.”
“I thought Tiger was striped.”
“Underneath the stripes, she was tan. Brownish.”
“Well, she’s yours, if you want her. She needs a home now that her owner’s on… vacation.” I didn’t tell him Sam was in rehab, since everyone at the firm thought he was at Disney World, switching cartoon allegiances.
“Do you think she likes me?” He tickled Jamie 17 with a wrinkled index finger, but she ignored him in favor of a black Mont Blanc.
“Of course she does. How could she not?”
“You didn’t,” he said, more than a bit resentfully.
“I told you, that was before I knew you.” We had spent the morning together, with me confessing my ruse as Linda Frost and The Great and Powerful forgiving me, at least after I swore to reimburse the firm for the hooker suit and tuna fish.
“I don’t think she likes me. She doesn’t pay me any attention.”
“She will in time.”
“I’m eighty-two, dear. I don’t have much time.”
“Stop that.” I didn’t want to think about it. I’d had enough death for a lifetime.
Grun watched Jamie 17 flop over on the table and stretch one furry paw to the pen. “She certainly is a playful gal. Tiger was, too. She was this little when we got her.” He held his hands six inches apart. “She liked cream cheese.”
“I remember, you told me.”
“What does this kitten like?”
“Uh, Snickers and Diet Coke?”
“You’re joking.”
“Of course.” Eeek. “She likes salmon. Only the best for this baby.”
He paused. “I must say, I didn’t know what to make of it when I saw your note.” He meant the one I’d left him when he fell asleep on me in the conference room. It lay crinkled on the coffee table between us, a single sheet of yellow legal paper on which I’d scribbled three large letters: I O U.
“Well, I did owe you. I owed you an apology and a kitten. Now you got both.”
“I don’t remember the apology. Perhaps you could you say it again. I’m quite old and my memory fails.” He was smiling slyly.
“You remember, Mr. Grun.”
“Perhaps I didn’t hear it. My hearing, particularly in my right ear-”
“All right, already. I’m sorry I thought you were a tyrranical bastard.”
“I accept your apology.” He tickled Jamie 17, and she batted at him with a floppy paw. He tickled again, she batted again, and she finally abandoned the pen for one of the most prominent lawyers of his day.
“See, she likes you, Mr. Grun. You have to take her. She has no place else to go.”
“Why cant you keep her?”
“My dog doesn’t like her. She’s jealous.” Another lie, and it had come so easily. Practice makes perfect. “This cat has no home. She needs you.”
“Well. I suppose I’ll take her.”
“Wonderful!” I said, only partly meaning it. We both watched the cat, me for the last time, but I didn’t want to think about that. Maybe I could visit her. In Boca. In December.
“Bennie,” he said, “where will you practice now? There’s a place for you here at Grun. I’d arrange for you to have a fine office near this one. I have many important clients that need attention and, considering your years of experience, your partnership draw would be considerable.”
It gave me pause. A Gold Coast office? A huge paycheck? Blue chip clients and Ivy League associates? It was a no-brainer. “No thanks, sir. I’m starting another firm.”
“Understood.” He nodded, smiling, as he stroked Jamie 17’s back. “You say the kitten has no name?”
“None at all.”
“A cat should have a name.”
“Why? It’s only a cat.”
“I’m shocked to hear you say that!”
“It’s not a real pet, like a dog. I bet you could even leave it in a car, all day long.”
“Never! Cats are intelligent creatures, sensitive creatures!”
“Sorry.” We both looked at Jamie 17, who had waltzed over to the box of chocolates and was sniffing at it delicately. Her cat brain was telling her it was Snickers, but it was only Godiva. “So what do you want to name her, Mr. Grun?”
“I confess, I don’t know any good names.”
I acted like I was thinking hard. “How about Jamie 17?”
“That’s a horrid name.”
“Sorry.”
“Horrid.”He wrinkled his wrinkled nose.
“Gotcha.”
“I could name her Tiger, like my other.”
“No. It’s stupid to name all your cats the same thing.”
“Quite right. I stand corrected.” He nodded. “Her name, it should suit her.” He paused. “I have the perfect one.”
“What?”
“Think. She’s a brown cat. What else is brown?”
Shit? “I give up.”