Page 83 of Hold the Pickle
Dalton: Keep me updated.
I sit there, my panicked brain searching for a solution to our dilemma.
Pitch a tent in Max’s back yard. Get an Air B&B for a few days. A cheap one, if I can find one.
But those things aren’t permanent solutions.
The fact is, I either have to give up the cats or give up living in LA.
Then the answer comes to me.
I don’t like it.
Dalton won’t like it, either
But it’s what has to happen if I want to keep the cats.
I have to go home.
If I do that, Dalton could keep the apartment. Evan could come in to inspect the place whenever he wanted. The cats and I could be gone.
I think and think, but the more I consider it, the more I know this is the solution. My parents love animals, but are currently petless. They have a big house.
When the kittens are bigger, maybe I can give one to my brother Axel, who lives on the other side of the woods from my parents. My brother Court might take a couple of them. They love having barn cats.
My throat grows thick. I pick up Greyson, Pumpkin, Doppelgänger, and Ferris Mewler. Can I let them go? Tears drip from my eyes.
There’s another risk. If I go home, how long until my family makes me go to work for Pickle Media?
And what about Dalton? I’d be leaving him, living two states away in Colorado. We’re so new. Would he wait for me to come back? Is that too much to ask?
I lie on the rug, the kittens crawling over me.
I’m afraid to leave the room. It’s cozy in here with all the cats. If I go out there, I have to face my decision. Start packing.
Leave Dalton.
I lie back down and Mama Cat walks up to sit close to my head, kneading her paws gently in my hair.
“Thanks for the biscuits,” I tell her, but my voice cracks.
The kittens settle all over me, my belly, on my legs. Ferris curls into my neck.
There’s no hope that they were merely trying to scare us with the notice. They came today, and they’ll come again in a few hours, or tonight, or tomorrow.
I wipe the tears from my eyes. Might as well put the plan into action.
I text Max first.
Me: Got busted with the cats. Going to drive home with them tonight. I’ll come back to help at the deli when you need me, especially when the baby comes.
Max: What? Tonight?
Me: Have to. They already came over to evict us. Going to let my roommate keep the place since he works at the hospital.
I swallow hard at the wordroommate. Like Dalton was never anything more. But we never announced it. We didn’t think about it. In our quiet space, it didn’t seem necessary.
Max: You sure there’s no place to go? I could ask around.
