I have followed her. She is a delight to watch, everything is new and wonderful. I think this is a time of growing for her, and I feel that it is a time of pain. Her husband seems to share nothing with her. He seldom goes out with her. I am glad. I couldn’t bear it if she loved him. We will meet soon. My patience will not hold much longer.
Wednesday, May 19:
I have not written anything for a long time. We have met, we are together. I need not write of this.
Friday, May 21:
Her husband deals in stocks, bonds, land, small corporate trades. His young sister absorbs adult business affairs with a shocking hunger and rapidity, with the same commitment and trained memory that she absorbed spells and enchantments. A voracious child, singleminded as a young vulture. Tim fears her.
Saturday, May 22:
My love has moved in with me; she is all my happiness. She relishes everything about the city: the wind, the shops, the little restaurants, the wharves. We walk, we laugh, we eat and listen to music, and make love.
She is fascinated by the sleek cats of the city basking under stairs or on balconies. She will kneel to stroke them; she is aware of every cat—and they, of her. Cats wait for her behind curtained windows and in alleys, though she talks to them in a language that none of them understands.
Wednesday, May 26:
Tim doesn’t know what to make of my collection of paintings of cats—they fascinate her in an uneasy way. She has grown up to feel that images are evil. I try to tell her that these were made with love. There is one sketch she keeps returning to, of the young calico, a charcoal sketch Alice did. I told her it was done by the daughter of a friend, and I took her to meet the family. She and Alice were drawn to one another. Tim took the child’s hand in a strange, tender gesture, delighting Alice. They are already fast friends.
Saturday, May 29:
I have taken Tim to the Cat Museum. She was charmed; she wanted to know how I happened to do the designing. I told her Alice’s father suggested me, that the old doctor who commissioned it didn’t know half how interested I was. That amused her. And Tim has done a strange thing, she has commissioned a piece of sculpture for the museum. She wanted me to help her choose an artist. I have suggested Smith, a metal piece. He is already at work on it.
Melissa paused, feeling her pulse pound. Why would Timorell commission a sculpture in a museum strange to her, in a world strange to her?
Unless she had a special use for that sculpture. She tried to remember an iron or bronze cat with the artist’s name Smith.
