I sighed and kept typing.
“Mew!”
I looked up at the cat, who had sat herself down on the rug in front of the sink, tail curled around her front paws.
“What?” I asked her.
“Mrow.”
“You have food. And water.”
“Mrrrrowl.”
Litter. Shit. Literally, I suppose, if I didn’t figure out an alternative solution.
I pushed myself up, hobbling on my crutches over to the sink, under which my mother had always kept a large basin. Sassafras moved away from the danger of the metal crutches. The basin was still there. I pulled it out, awkwardly leaning on the counter, trying to balance my crutches. I dropped one of them, but managed not to fall over, at least.
Now I needed something to putinthe basin.
An extremely slow, awkward, and painful sojourn to the barn later, and I had a half-bag of sand that would normally have been used to provide grip on an icy driveway or porch.
“Meerow!”
“Yeah, yeah, give me a second.”
Struggling, I poured sand on the floor before adjusting and getting it into the basin, which I was at least smart enough to have put on the floor before trying to pour sand into it. Sassafras approached the sand on the floor cautiously, then sniffed at it.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told her. “You use the sandinthe box, not on the floor. Got it?”
“Mrrp.” She pawed a little at the sand.
“No, stop that.”
She looked up at me. I finished pouring, then used a crutch to scuff the sand she’d been sniffing.
“Use the box,” I told her.
She sniffed at it tentatively, then delicately stepped in, turned around once, still sniffing, then turned her back to me and squatted.
“Glad that works for you,” I muttered, turning around and making my slow way back to the kitchen table.
With nothing better to do once I’d finished typing out the list of things we’d catalogued, I started re-reading it, thinking about things I thought should be here or anything that shouldn’t have been in the house I’d known growing up.
The two upstairs bedrooms—which had been Noah’s and mine—were the most different from what I remembered. Mine had clearly been converted to storage, the bed frame dismantled and tucked in a corner, accumulating cobwebs. The mattress, never particularly comfortable, had been rolled up and tied in a spiral like an inedible Swiss Roll. I’d loved those before alpha-gal stole my ability to eat anything that included cream filling. Boxes had been stacked around the room, although I wasn’t sure what was in them—I hadn’t wanted to open up anything sealed with tape or twine. Maybe our old clothes or drawings we made if Father hadn’t made Momma destroy them, maybe some of Momma’s things from before she married Father.
The other room, Noah’s, appeared to have been given to the sister we’d never known—Rachael. It had contained one of the few toys that we’d been allowed—a baby doll, presumably given to Noah so that he’d play-act as his future role of mother. I’d been given a small plastic work-bench set, which I’d played with as often as play had been permitted. Noah hadn’t been particularly interested in that, either, choosing instead to draw or paint or play in the mud making sculptures out of mud and sticks and stones. We’d each had a teddy bear, as well—Noah’s a dark brown, mine more sandy-colored, but I didn’t see either one out anywhere.
Rachael’s room—what had been Noah’s—had been updated with delicate floral wallpaper and her bed had two pink pillows and a well-loved stuffed sheep, with a small rocking chair in the corner with a pale pink crocheted afghan folded over the arm and the doll arranged as though it were sitting. It was definitely more luxury than either Noah or I had growing up.
I wondered if it was because my parents had some amount of regret about the way they’d treated us. Or maybe they just thought that harsh treatment was fine for boys, and blamed that for Noah being Noah. I knew Father thought women were weaker and more susceptible to both emotions and desires—so maybe they’d given Rachael more things—pillows, blankets, the stuffed sheep—to make sure that she stayedshe.
I had no evidence either way, but it made me wonder what made Rachael more lovable than me or Noah. Given that she was dead, I’d never know.
A scratching from the back of the house pulled my attention away from that dark line of contemplation, and I frowned, my pulse picking up.
It could be an animal—maybe another cat? Or it could be my father in wolf form.
Or Elliot, as a badger.
