Chapter 4 - The Apartment With Two Cats
I didn't go straight to her apartment. I told myself I would after I dropped my bag at home, after I changed out of the navy shirt I'd worn to the airport, after I sat on my couch for twenty minutes and listened to the refrigerator hum.
But the key was already in my purse. She'd given it to me two weeks earlier, slipped it across her kitchen island while her tote hung on the back of a chair.
"Just in case," she'd said. "You know how they get."
I hadn't asked which cats or how long.
Her building was on Grand, the one with the new lobby and the doorman who always called her Mrs. Whitmore even though she never corrected him. I parked in the lot behind and took the elevator up. My reflection in the brass doors showed my ponytail coming loose, my gold chain sitting crooked. I fixed it without thinking.
Her door had the same welcome mat she'd had for three years, the gray one that said HOME in thin letters. I unlocked it and the cats didn't come running. That was the first thing I noticed.
Inside, the air was cool and still. She kept it at sixty-eight year-round. The shades were half open, the light coming in in neat rectangles across the hardwood. Her suitcase was by the entryway, fully packed, upright, tags still looped through the handle. A small carry-on beside it, her tote set neatly on top like she'd staged it for a photo. She'd been ready to walk out that morning. She'd been ready for that trip.
In the kitchen, the counters were wiped clean. Nothing left out. Two stainless steel cat bowls on a silicone mat, both empty and washed. The litter boxes in the laundry nook were scooped, fresh litter smoothed flat. In the living room, the couch pillows were fluffed, a folded throw blanket placed exactly in the center. It looked less like someone lived there and more like someone had prepared to be gone for a week.
Milo came around the corner first, the gray one, slow and careful. Then Bean, smaller, white with orange patches, who stopped and stared at me from the hallway. Neither meowed. They just looked at me the way cats do when they know you're not the person who usually opens the door.
"Hey, guys," I said. My voice sounded too loud in the quiet.
I set my purse down and filled their water. That was automatic. I did that without deciding to. The cabinet where she kept the dry food was exactly where it had always been. I scooped half a cup into each bowl and they came forward, cautious, then ate.
While they ate I walked the apartment. I told myself I was looking for instructions. She always left instructions. A sticky note on the fridge with feeding times, the vet's number, which plant not to overwater. Last time she'd left a typed list in an envelope labeled CAT CARE in her handwriting.
There was nothing on the fridge this time. No note. No envelope. No paper at all except a takeout menu held by a magnet shaped like a lemon.
I checked the counter where she usually left her planner. The leather planner with the snap closure, the one she'd had open at the airport with the black pen clipped to the pages. The spot was empty. A faint dust outline where it had sat. Of course it was empty. She'd taken it with her to the check-in counter. She'd still had it when she walked away.
That was the moment it landed. She hadn't left instructions because she hadn't thought she needed to. I'd said at the airport, "Maybe it's easier this way." I'd made it easy. I had always made it easy to assume I'd be available, that I didn't need details or a thank you or even a text that said what time to come by. Assumed availability - that was the phrase that came into my head and stayed there.
I opened her junk drawer out of habit, then closed it. I wasn't snoop. I wasn't supposed to look for anything. But I did check my phone and open the camera.
I took a photo of the entryway, the suitcases still packed. I took a photo of the clean counters, the empty bowls before I'd filled them, the blank fridge. I took a photo of the litter boxes, untouched. I wasn't sure why. It felt important to have a record that I had walked into a house that was ready for its owner to be gone, and that the owner had not prepared for the person who was supposed to keep it running.
Bean jumped onto the windowsill and settled in a square of sun. Milo rubbed once against my ankle and then walked away. I sat on the edge of her couch where I knew she didn't like people to sit and let my hands rest on my knees. I didn't fluff the pillow after. I didn't refold the throw.
I had come to do exactly what she'd told me to do at the airport. "You're staying home to watch my cats." And I was there. The cats were fine. They had food and water for the night. But I realized I didn't have to do the rest of it right then - the extra sweeping, the mail collection, the watering schedule I was supposed to remember without being told. I didn't have to prove I was useful by making her apartment more perfect than she'd left it.
May you like
I texted her from her living room. Not a long message. Just: I'm at your place. Cats are fed. I didn't see a note so let me know if you need anything specific.
I left the key on the island where she could see it when she got home, not in my purse. I let myself out and locked the door behind me. In the hallway, the elevator dinged and I waited for it, breathing slow, feeling the quiet of that apartment still around me even as the doors opened.
