Love Saves the Day полностью

“It always was. The guy who used to own this place sold chess sets he made”—Laura points to another window—“and there was a candle shop next to that.” Her arm sweeps back, to her left. “And down there, on Second Avenue, was Love Saves the Day.” She’s silent for a moment. “I think I heard it’s a noodle place now.”

Josh puts an arm around her shoulders, bringing my carrier closer to the side of her leg. “Did you want to pick up some lunch there?”

“Nah,” she tells him. “Let’s get something Prudence likes. Maybe tuna sandwiches.”

They walk to the end of the block, and Josh puts his arm in the air until a yellow-colored car pulls over next to us. All three of us get into the backseat and Laura settles my carrier onto her lap. I think about tuna sandwiches the whole way home.

It’s funny how a place you know well can feel so different when you come back after a long time. Part of it is realizing how bad I smell now (like the Bad Place) after smelling all the things at home with my regular Prudence-smell. But the whole apartment looks bigger in some places and smaller in others, and just odd in general. Maybe it was being with Sarah in our old apartment while I was sleeping that makes everything around here seem different than it used to, and like I was away for longer than I was. Still, it’s good to be home. First I spend long moments re-marking my scratching post (I didn’t have anything to scratch on at the Bad Place). My Prudence-bowls are filled with food, exactly where I left them. I’m even happy (only for a moment) to see that awful blue mat with the fake-happy cats resting beneath them. When I jostle the water bowl, it’s because I can only drink moving water, not because I’m angry about the mat anymore.

Laura and Josh must have gone shopping while I was staying in the Bad Place, because now the living room floor is crowded with store-bought cat toys. There are little toys that look just like mice—with fur and everything—that squeak when I bite them, and balls with tiny bells that roll in all directions and remind me of the jingly toys Sarah brought home when I first went to live with her. Josh and Laura remembered to save the big paper bag the toys came in, and I crawl all the way into the back of it, holding one of my mice in my teeth and swiping out at their feet with my front paws whenever they walk past. There’s also one toy that’s like a long stick with feathers—like the ones from Sarah’s bird-clothes—dangling from a string at the end. Laura holds the end of the stick over my head and drags it around while I try to catch the dangling feathers. She laughs when I stand up on my hind legs and bat at them with my front paws, until I wonder who’s supposed to be enjoying this toy—her or me?

They also brought home something called catnip, which looks a little like the cooking herbs Sarah used to make our food with but smells so much more wonderful. Josh sprinkled some on the living room floor, and at first I was just breathing its smell in and noticing how nice it was. Then, the next thing you know, I was rolling around on my back and all I could think was, This is sooooooo gooooood. This, of course, is not a dignified way for a cat to behave. I was able to recover a little bit of dignity when Laura walked by while I was rolling around, and I leapt at her ankles. She seemed as delighted with this display of feline hunting skills as Sarah ever had. She even scooped me up the way Sarah used to and asked, “Who’s my happy girl?” I rubbed my forehead against hers just the way I used to with Sarah when we lived in Lower East Side.

Days pass, I’m not sure how many. Laura doesn’t go to her office during the day, and she doesn’t read any work papers at night. Now she spends a lot of time napping, and I nap with her. Sometimes we nap together in the big bed upstairs, and sometimes we fall asleep on the couch until Josh comes to throw a blanket over us. He’s always very quiet, trying not to disturb us. He seems concerned about making sure Laura is getting enough rest, even though she isn’t getting sick in the mornings anymore.

She and Josh talk and watch movies and go out to lunch on days that aren’t even Sundays. Last night, they went out together to celebrate some sort of word-writing about that building on Avenue A. “We got a story!” Josh kept saying. “A story in The New York Times!” But he didn’t say how many times, or times what, so it was hard to know why it was such a big deal. It must have made more sense to Laura than it did to me, because she put her arms around Josh and said, “I’m proud of you.” The skin on her forehead didn’t even tighten the way it used to whenever Josh mentioned that building.