Serendipity and Me (9781101602805) (17 page)

 

I put the book down

lift Serendipity off my legs

and go to my closet.

 

I want to see more family pictures

so I can follow where this story went.

How the two of them

became the three of us.

 

This time I upend the box

and spread the pictures out

like I'm playing with money.

 

And a patch of orange

catches my eye.

 

A cat sitting like a little person

on Mom's lap.

 

 

 

I never knew she had a cat.

 

I look through other pictures in that area

and find a bunch more

of an orange cat

with a tail like a flame.

 

And pictures of the cat and me

from baby to toddler.

 

Orange cat touching its nose to mine.

Orange cat leaping into my lap

on the rocking chair.

Orange cat cuddled against my stomach

as we nap on the floor of the den.

 

No wonder I love cats.

 

In the last one I find, I'm a tiny baby.

 

I'm lying on our blue couch

with the cat on the back of it

looking down at me.

 

I wish I could remember looking up

and seeing that furry face.

 

I wish I knew why

a cat was okay before

and it's not okay now.

 

 

 

I think Serendipity

slept on my head last night.

I can feel puncture marks

in my scalp

where she kneaded herself

to sleep.

 

Stayed up way too late

for a Wednesday night

reading most of
Love Songs

and looking at pictures.

 

Half-asleep

I step on a piece of paper

and almost fall over

trying to unstick it from my foot.

 

Oh.

 

It's the paper Dad gave me last night.

I fell asleep and forgot about this.

 

I should be getting ready for school

 

but I have to stop and read it.

 

 

 

 

SMALL DEMANDS

 

For two days now

the child has appeared

when I've reached the best part of a novel.

She places herself between me and the words

her chubby hand planted on the page

like a bagel with fingers. . . .

The bagel will not be removed.

I try lifting it gently, at first,

then I grasp her wrist

then I pry at her palm

but she quickly frees herself

and slaps her heavy hand back on the resolution.

 

It will have to wait.

 

She senses I have given in

and settles sweetly into my lap

pointing to numbers on the page

and reciting them.

She turns pages and asks for words

eyes bright with my attention

fingers light with learning.

 

Every cat I've owned has refused to budge

from a newspaper spread out on the floor

in front of an anxious reader.

But cats can be shut behind doors.

 

I have a child.

The story will wait.

 

She loved me.

 

I mean, I knew that

and I felt that

and I remembered that.

 

But here is more evidence

 

and at the same time

I'm teary with love

I'm angry with Dad.

 

Why didn't he give this to me sooner?

 

Why is he so wrapped up

in his stupid grief

 

that he won't let me

have my own?

 

 

 

I am storming out of my room

with cat pictures

and the poem

when my foot kicks

the
Love Songs
book.

 

I honestly need to stop

dropping things on the floor.

 

I pick up the book

and like black-light lit fingerprints

I can see Dad's tenderness

all over it.

 

The book

melts me

toward Dad.

 

Less stormy now

I take the pile of artifacts

to the kitchen.

 

Dad has toasted me a waffle

and cut me a grapefruit

and is heading out the door

with his leather schoolbag

and a backward wave.

 

Wind out of my sails.

 

 

 

Before I leave for school

I go into Dad's room

with evidence.

I want it to stand out

so I make his bed.

 

I wonder if I should put the lone pillow

in the middle at the top

even though he still sleeps

only on his own side.

Maybe this is why

he never makes his bed.

 

I place his pillow on his side

and center a picture

on the pillow.

 

The picture is of me—

baby on a blue couch

with a furry guardian angel.

 

He'll wonder how I got the picture.

 

I wonder if he'll be mad.

 

But he'll know

that I know

 

cats were not always

forbidden.

 

 

 

It seems pointless

to hide the pictures now.

I leave the pile in the middle of my floor

and close my door

against Serendipity

so she can't ruin them.

 

I have one picture

in my sweatshirt pocket

to have it near me.

 

It's of me and the orange cat

looking out the front window

along with a reflection of my mom

taking the picture.

 

I wave good-bye to Serendipity

looking out the same window.

 

Mrs. Whittier is in her front yard

doing something with flowers.

I jog over to her.

 

Good morning, Sara!

 

I know something           
I tell her.

I pull out the picture

and show it to her.

But Dad's still not talking.

 

Mrs. Whittier nods gently.

 

I turn and head for school.