A Catch in Time Page 12

  Kate turned and said, “So, you guys had enough of Jurassic Park?”

  Kate’s normal tone of voice was unnerving, after her bleak disclosure. How, Laura asked herself, could they determine if Lucas was … mentally deficient—she shied away from the term “sociopath”—or if he’d just been traumatized by events of the past weeks?

  She could ask John Thomas. Was he too young to have noticed changes in Lucas? To know whether Lucas had acted strangely before?

  “I’m bored,” Lucas said, to no one in particular.

  “Go get your brother,” Kate said, sliding back her chair.

  That evening, as Laura helped Kate put the children to bed, she was aware of every word and gesture she made to Lucas. She felt awkward and stilted, and admired Kate’s ease. What had before appeared to be Kate’s inattention, her habit of not looking at Lucas even when she spoke to him, her offhand manner with him, now seemed a monumental achievement of normalcy. She struggled to imitate Kate’s casual gestures but couldn’t overcome her hesitation to touch him.

  Kate’s worked on dealing with him and now it’s just a habit, thought Laura. She hurried from the room, leaving Kate to flip off the light switch and say a final good night to John Thomas.

  CHAPTER 20

  LAURA BOLTED UPRIGHT, SHRINKING FROM THE TOUCH that had jolted her from sleep.

  “Laura,” John Thomas whispered in the darkness.

  “John Thomas.” She blinked at his vague shape next to her bed, her heart still thundering. “You scared me. What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Something’s wrong with Reina. Please come, Laura.” John Thomas pulled her arm anxiously.

  Laura pushed her blankets aside, kicked her feet free of them, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “Where’s Kate?” she whispered. The bedside clock glowed 5:18. The dim outlines of the two other beds in the room, the humped shapes in them, were difficult to see.

  “She won’t wake up. Reina’s crying something awful. She’s hurting, Laura, hurry, come on.”

  “Okay, I’m coming.” Laura padded behind John Thomas, his small hand tugging hers. They passed from the carpeted hallway into the kitchen and Laura gasped as her bare feet met icy linoleum. Flipping on the light, she followed John Thomas through the kitchen and into the small den where he and Lucas slept.

  The den was brightly lit. Reina lay on her blanket in the far corner next to the TV, whimpering, and Lucas squatted near her. Reina suddenly yowled, her head and neck stiffened upward, her back legs flexed. Lucas’s head tilted to one side, his attention fixed on Reina’s rear. Just as Laura knelt beside him, Reina’s tail lifted at the croup and a small, glistening shape slid out onto the blanket.

  “That’s two,” Lucas piped. “See there?” He reached toward another small shape, almost hidden under Reina’s leg. Laura grabbed his hand before he nudged it.

  “Don’t touch, Lucas.”

  Without looking at Laura, Lucas asked, “How many more are coming?”

  “I don’t know.” Laura felt John Thomas’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Why’s she crying, Laura?” he asked, his voice choked with tears.

  Laura reassuringly squeezed his hand. “It’s hard work to get these puppies out, but she’s okay, John Thomas.” Reina grunted onto her front elbows, twisting her head along her side to lap at the puppies, first one, then the other, lifting her leg out of the way as she licked them with long strokes.

  “EEEYuuu! They’re slimy,” Lucas exclaimed, moving closer.

  Laura rose and pulled Lucas with her. “Come on, boys,” she said. “Reina will be fine. We’re just distracting her.”

  John Thomas slipped his small, cold hand into Laura’s. “Katie said she’s young and this’s probably her first litter, so how can she know what to do?”

  Laura drew both boys toward the kitchen, then stopped in the doorway and looked back at Reina. “It’s instinct. Something inside her makes her know what to do. Really, John Thomas.” She smiled at him. “She’s doing just fine.”

  She settled the boys at the kitchen table and went back to her room for her robe and slippers, flipping on the thermostat in the hallway as she went. Reentering the kitchen, she saw both boys twisted around in their seats to watch Reina. Laura shut the door to the den then switched on the small TV on the kitchen counter. Cartoons. Perfect.

  “Okay,” she said, “what’ll it be? Cereal and toast?” She glanced at the dark window. “I’ll bet you’ve never had breakfast this early.”

  As she prepared the boys’ breakfasts, and tea for herself, she wished Josiah were awake. For an entire week, she had loved him. She tried to define what it was that made her so certain. What is it? Why Josiah, why not Eli? Eli’s nice, he’s cute, he’s comfortable to be around. Or why not Mack, the father of her unborn child?

  She settled herself at the table with the boys and her tea and thought back to the day she’d met Josiah and Eli. Her first impressions in their initial, frightening meeting had been that Eli was younger than twenty-three, more a teenager, somewhat nondescript.

  She saw Eli differently now. More mature than his years, he was thoughtful, sincere, and very funny. Hardly nondescript.

  She tried to remember first impressions of Josiah, but, unexpectedly, Kate loomed large in her mind. Kate, sitting on the hood of the car, arms braced behind her, one leg dangling, caught between the smashed cars. Dark red, curly hair, slim and small. She seemed to be what might be called a “complete” person, in control, even though the situation was not. There was Kate, grinning at her through her pain, flippant, defiant.

  Now Laura knew Kate was spontaneous rather than practical, experienced rather than knowledgeable. Her emotional energy, instead of her reason, led her actions.

  She was not always predictable. When angered, Kate stopped thinking about what others thought or felt. Overall, her kindness ran deeper than her thoughtlessness, unless she’d been hurt. Then she shot from the hip, and the battle, for her, was over.

  Kate’s unpredictable vengefulness had surprised Laura, but she’d come to accept the unexpected flurries and had learned to ignore them. Kate was what she felt. And feelings changed.

  Laura’s mind ventured next to her first meeting with Catherine, of coming upon the older woman, lying propped in her hospital bed, her gaze steady, her tone supercilious, domineering, demanding. Old-fashioned. Laura smiled. Catherine was few of those things. Not domineering, she was disciplined and pragmatic, the most practical of them all. And her clothing was the only old-fashioned thing about her. She was educated, organized, and perceptive. The only dismissive thing about her was her impatience with muddled thinking, and the only demands she made were for clarity.

  Which brought Alex to mind, but thoughts of Josiah overrode him.

  Josiah. Lounging casually against a car in the warehouse parking lot. Gentle. Confident. Reassuring. Intelligent. Her first impressions. And now?

  The same.

  There were no first and second Josiahs, Laura realized. When she visualized the moment of their first encounter, he was the same Josiah she now knew.

  It’s like all those people who say they felt like they’d known the other person forever. First impressions are exactly who that person is. They know them. Their impressions don’t change, they just fill out, get colored in.

  “Laura, maybe we should check on Reina,” John Thomas said. “She’s awful quiet.”

  Laura ruffled John Thomas’s hair. “First you’re worried she’s noisy, then you’re worried she’s quiet? Maybe we should teach her to sing, so you can stop worrying.”

  John Thomas giggled but his glance darted to the door.

  “Come on. We’ll peek in on her,” Laura said softly.

  John Thomas was at the door before Laura finished speaking. Lucas, engrossed in a Road Runner cartoon, methodically spooned cereal into his mouth. Maybe he’d lost interest in Reina, Laura hoped. Lucas. A new unknown. She walked into the den with John Thomas, and they knelt near Reina’s blank
et.

  The dog greeted them with quivering tail, her silky ears pinned back in affectionate submission. While John Thomas gently scratched around her ears, Laura counted. Four puppies were clearly visible, two snuggled against Reina’s stomach and two more lying farther out. Laura saw a fifth puppy partially obscured between Reina’s back legs and only then realized the two outer pups weren’t moving. She looked closer, trying to find a flutter of breathing, and saw that one was still partially encased in its glistening sac.

  She caught her breath and wondered if she could coax the tiny bodies into life. With gentle fingers, she massaged one of the small bodies, simulating the motions of a mother dog’s stroking tongue.

  “John Thomas, go wet a kitchen towel with warm water, please.”

  “What’s wrong?” Worry and fear filled his features.

  “Hurry, honey. Maybe nothing, but I need that towel.”

  Laura turned back to the puppies. A rush of water in the sink mingled with the “Meep, meep” of the Roadrunner evading another Acme booby trap.

  Reina’s ears perked as she watched John Thomas through the open doorway. Laura gently scooped up a neglected puppy, cupped it in her hand, and moved it under Reina’s nose. “Come on, Reina, clean it up, girl, come on.” Reina’s tail wagged once, but her attention remained on John Thomas. “Come on, Reina.” Laura nudged the puppy under Reina’s muzzle. “John Thomas isn’t going anywhere.”

  Reina turned briefly to Laura, her head tilting to John Thomas’s name, then turned back to keep sight of her adored one. Laura replaced the small, still form onto the blanket next to the one she’d been stroking.

  John Thomas brought the towel and squatted by Reina, stroking her while he stared at the small shapes on the blanket. “Are the puppies okay?”

  “I don’t know, John Thomas,” Laura admitted. She used the towel to wipe the puppies from nose to tail with delicate strokes. “Sometimes they need a little help, but-sometimes they don’t make it.”

  “Why isn’t Reina helping them?”

  Laura continued to stroke with the hand towel.

  “She’s giving her attention to the others.” Reina twisted to lick the two mewling pups cuddled into her side, tiny grunts greeting her lapping tongue. As she shifted herself to better reach them, her hind leg rose and uncovered the fifth puppy. Laura’s breath caught at the sight of the grossly malformed shape. She quickly bent forward to hide it from John Thomas. “Go get Kate, okay?”

  Fortunately, he hadn’t seen the fifth puppy. “I tried to wake her before, but she’s sleeping real hard.”

  “Try again, please,” she said.

  John Thomas trotted from the room. Easing out of her cramped position, Laura looked for something to wrap the deformed puppy in. Nothing handy. She’d have to use the wet towel in her hand. With a grimace, she pulled the misshapen pup from between Reina’s legs, using the towel to grasp it. She began to roll it in the towel, then stopped with a gasp. It was breathing. Oh God, now what?

  “What are you doing?” Lucas said, startling her so badly that she jerked and bumped into him as he looked over her shoulder.

  Lucas stared at the small pulsing form on the towel, its back oddly twisted, with two stunted, flipperlike forelegs, and a fused lump of cartilage and flesh for its rear legs. The lower jaw was so abbreviated, the roof of its mouth was exposed. But it was breathing.

  “He looks weird,” Lucas commented just before Laura folded the towel over it. “Where’s his feet?”

  “Lucas, go back to the kitchen. I need to help Reina now.”

  “You said she didn’t need help. You said—”

  “Lucas, go,” Laura said sharply.

  Before he’d taken a step, John Thomas was back, a sleepy Kate in tow, in pajamas and bare feet, red curls flattened around her pale face. She yawned and stretched.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “God, my head. I didn’t get in ‘til two. What time is it?”

  “Kate,” Laura said, trying to indicate that the children should be kept at bay. “Could you get the boys a piece of cake and see what other cartoons are on?”

  “Yeah, cake.” Lucas ran to the kitchen and yanked open the refrigerator.

  “Cake?” Kate asked, ignoring Lucas. “You woke me to serve cake?”

  “It’s morning, Katie.” John Thomas giggled. “Early, early morning.”

  Laura stared a steady signal at Kate. “And it’s a special morning, one we should celebrate with cake. So, why don’t you get them some, Kate, and then come right back.”

  Kate frowned a question at Laura, then smiled at John Thomas. “Right. Cake it is, kiddo.”

  When she returned, Daffy Duck was whooping insanely in the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, kneeling next to Laura.

  Laura uncovered the live malformed puppy. “Holy shit,” Kate breathed, then noticed the two still forms nearby. “Oh, wow, I hate funerals.”

  “How do you feel about euthanasia?” Laura whispered.

  “I agree with Dr. Kerouac.”

  “Kevorkian.”

  “Whatever.”

  Laura grimaced. “How do we do it?” They stared at the grotesque, palpitating form.

  “Maybe it’ll just stop breathing.”

  “What if it doesn’t? Reina won’t have anything to do with it and it’ll starve.”

  “Look at its mouth,” Kate said, pointing. “It’ll starve whether she tries or not. Jesus. Have you ever seen anything like?”

  “Shhh.” Laura glanced over her shoulder, but the doorway was clear.

  “We could drown it,” Kate whispered.

  “I don’t think I could hold it under.”

  “Me either. Maybe we should get Catherine. Bet she’d do it.”

  Laura nudged her in admonishment. “Maybe we could smother it,” she said, looking at the throw pillows on a loveseat against the wall. “Close the door. I’ll get the pillow.”

  Kate locked the door, then rejoined her.

  Kate whispered, “Maybe one of the guys …”

  “Why should they have to do it?”

  “Well, why should we?”

  “Because we’re here. Let’s get this over with.” Laura held the pillow aloft.

  Kate grabbed her arm. “Maybe the pillow’s not such a good idea. What if we end up squishing it to death?”

  “Jesus, Kate.”

  “Look. I think it’s dying.” Kate leaned closer.

  Irregular breaths shuddered through the tiny body as it gasped for air in fishlike gulps. The two women breathed in concert with the pup and held their breaths during the long intervals of stillness.

  Finally, Kate released a loud sigh. “It’s over.” She nudged Laura. “Breathe, honey. I don’t want to bury you, too.”

  CHAPTER 21

  KATE WANDERED INTO THE LIVING ROOM, AT ODDS with the world. During the week since Reina’s puppies had been born, the city had been battered by serial snowstorms. Housebound, Kate felt oppressed. Eli, on the couch, his stocking-clad feet resting on the coffee table, ignored her and watched TV.

  Kate rested her forehead on the cool windowpane and looked out at a world blurred by endless snowflakes.

  “Where is everybody?” she asked.

  “Laura took the kids to the play-gym, Alex’s at some church meeting, and Josiah went for a walk. Catherine’s around, somewhere,” Eli answered without taking his attention from the screen.

  Heaving a sigh, Kate moved to the couch and flopped down in the corner opposite Eli. Tired of being inside, she contrarily didn’t feel like going out.

  “What’s with all these talk shows and panels?” she finally said. “All they ever talk about anymore is religion. I’m sick of it. Change the channel.”

  “It’s all that’s on, unless you want to see cartoons or news.” He upped the volume with the remote and pointed at the screen. “See that guy? He’s a Jesuit priest. He heads the discussions on this show—it’s local. They’re televised live from that conve
ntion center over on Kietzke. It can be sort of interesting, all these different religions ragging on each other. He’s got the honcho rabbi and some evangelical preacher today. And a Buddhist monk. Look at that guy, he—”

  “Eli, ask me if I give a shit,” Kate said, annoyed.

  Catherine entered the living room, her cane thumping the rug, and carefully lowered herself into her favorite armchair. “Ah. The Father Bullard Show. What’s today’s topic?”

  Kate blew a raspberry while Eli answered, “Conversions. People are joining in droves—churches, temples, chapels—you name it. There’s a new type, too, people who are joining a whole bunch of faiths at the same time.”

  “Really,” Catherine said.

  “Really,” Kate mimicked, then laughed and abandoned her moodiness. “So,” she said to Catherine, “does it surprise you?”

  “Does what, dear?”

  “This cross-faith membership drive.”

  “It’s not a drive, Kate,” Eli interjected. “I said they were joining in droves.”

  Kate waved an arm. “Whatever.”

  “We can be irreverent at home, Kate,” Catherine warned, “but please promise me you’ll temper your comments outside this house.”

  Kate grunted. They fell silent at the sound of the Jesuit’s voice.

  “Faith,” said the priest. “What a beautiful word! A word that denies doubt and defies inquiry.”

  “How handy,” quipped Eli.

  “Perhaps it is true,” continued the Jesuit, “that all thought exists in an infinite receptacle, alongside all the thoughts that came before and all those that have yet to come, a place from which we pluck ideas and shape them into our own notions.” He turned to the evangelical preacher. “What do you think, Reverend Perry?”

  “That’s the guy from San Francisco.” Eli sat up. “I wonder if Alex knows he’s in town.”

  “—nothing but hogwash,” Reverend Perry was saying. “You got faith on the one hand, Father Bullard, but on the other hand, what you’ve got is evil. Pluck one of those thoughts out, some thought that most people have had, something like, oh—’I think we’ll have chicken tonight.’” Laughter tittered through the audience. “And try to justify the real existence of that puny notion. Hogwash. That thought didn’t come from no giant pot. That thought came from a person who knows he likes chicken. Chicken for the body, like prayer for the soul.”