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<h1><span style="font-size: 173%">15</span></h1>
<div class="tei-figure"><ANTIMG src="images/image15.png" width-obs="507" height-obs="450" alt="Illustration: Cat eating turkey neck from bowl on floor." /></div>
<p>Wednesday night before Thanksgiving I go
down to the delicatessen to buy some coke, so I
can really enjoy myself watching TV. Tom is
just finishing work at the flower shop, and I ask
him if he wants to come along home.</p>
<p>“Nah. Thanks. I got to be at work early tomorrow.”
He doesn’t sound too cheery.</p>
<p>“How’s the job going?”</p>
<p>“O.K., I guess.” We walk along a little ways.
“The job’s not bad, but I don’t want to be a
florist all my life, and I can’t see this job will
train me for anything else.”</p>
<p>That seems pretty true. It must be tough not
getting regular holidays off, too. “You have to
work all day tomorrow?” I ask.</p>
<p>“I open the store up at seven and start working
on orders we’ve already got. I’ll get through
around three or four.”</p>
<p>“Hey, you want to come for dinner? We’re
not eating till evening.”</p>
<p>Tom grins. “You cooking the dinner? Maybe
you better ask your mother.”</p>
<p>“It’ll be all right with Mom. Look, I’ll ask
her and come let you know in the store tomorrow,
O.K.?”</p>
<p>“Hmm. Well, sure. Thanks. I’ve got a date
with Hilda later in the evening, but she’s got to
eat with her folks first.”</p>
<p>“O.K. See you tomorrow.”</p>
<p>“Right.”</p>
<p>Mom says it’s all right about Tom coming, so
I go down and tell him in the morning. Turns
out Mom has asked Kate to have dinner with
us, too, which is quite a step. For Kate, I mean.
I think she would have turned the invitation
down, except no one can bear to hurt Mom’s
feelings. Kate’s been in our house before, of
course, but then she just came in to chat or have
tea or something. It wasn’t like an invitation.</p>
<p>She comes, and she looks like someone from
another world. I’ve never seen her in anything
but her old skirts and sneakers, so the “good
clothes” she’s wearing now must have been hanging
in a closet twenty years. The dress and shoes
are way out of style, and she’s carrying a real old
black patent-leather pocketbook. Usually she
just lugs her old cloth shopping bag, mostly full
of cat goodies. Come to think of it, that’s it: Kate
lives in a world that is just her own and the cats’.
I never saw her trying to fit into the ordinary
world before.</p>
<p>Cat knows her right away, though. Clothes
don’t fool him. He rubs her leg and curls up on
the sofa beside her, still keeping a half-open eye
on the oven door in the kitchen, where the
turkey is roasting.</p>
<p>Tom comes in, also in city clothes—a white
shirt and tie and jacket—the first time I ever saw
him in them. He sits down on the other side of
Cat, who stretches one paw out toward him
negligently.</p>
<p>Looking at Kate and Tom sitting there on the
sofa, both looking a little ill at ease, I get a funny
idea. My family is starting to collect people the
way Kate collects homeless cats. Of course, Kate
and Tom aren’t homeless. They’re people-less—not
part of any family. I think Mom always
wanted more people to take care of, so she’s glad
to have them.</p>
<p>Kidding, I ask Kate, “How many cats at your
home for Thanksgiving dinner?”</p>
<p>She stops stroking Cat a minute and thinks.
“Hmm, Susan’s got four new kittens, just got
their eyes open. A beautiful little orange one
and three tigers. Then there’s two big kittens,
strays, and one old stray tom. Makes eight, that’s
all. Sometimes I’ve had lots more than that.”</p>
<p>“Doesn’t the landlord ever object?” Pop asks.</p>
<p>Kate snorts. “Him! Huh! I pay my rent. And
I have my own padlock on the door, so he can’t
come snooping around.”</p>
<p>We all sit down to dinner. Pop gives Cat the
turkey neck to crunch up in the kitchen. He
finishes that and crouches and stares at us eating.
Kate gives him tidbits, which I’m not supposed
to do. I don’t think she really wants to eat the
turkey herself. She’s pretty strictly a fruit and
yogurt type.</p>
<p>After dinner Tom leaves to meet Hilda, and I
walk home with Kate, carrying a bag of scraps
and giblets for her cats. While she’s fiddling with
the two sets of keys to open her door, the man
next door sticks his head out. “Messenger was
here a little while ago with a telegram for you.
Wouldn’t give it to me.”</p>
<p>“A telegram?” Kate gapes.</p>
<p>“Yeah. He’ll be back.” The man looks pleased,
like he’s been able to deliver some bad news,
and pulls his head in and shuts his door.</p>
<p>We go into Kate’s apartment, and cats come
meowing and rubbing against her legs, and they
jump up on the sink and rub and nudge the bag
of scraps when she puts it down. Kate is muttering
rapidly to herself and fidgeting with her coat
and bag and not really paying much attention to
the cats, which is odd.</p>
<p>“Lots of people send telegrams on holidays.
It’s probably just greetings,” I say.</p>
<p>“Not to me, they don’t!” Kate snaps, also
sounding as if they better hadn’t.</p>
<p>I go over to play with the little kittens. The
marmalade-colored one is the strongest of the
litter, and he’s learned to climb out of the box.
He chases my fingers. Kate finishes feeding the
big cats, and she strides over and scoops him back
into the box. “You stay in there. You’ll get
stepped on.” She drops Susan back in with her
babies to take care of them.</p>
<p>The doorbell rings, and Kate yanks open the
door, practically bowling over an ancient little
messenger leaning sleepily against the side of
the door.</p>
<p>“Take it easy, lady, take it easy. Just sign
here,” he says.</p>
<p>She signs, hands him the pencil, and slams
the door. The orange kitten has got out again,
and Kate does come close to stepping on him as
she walks across the room tearing open the telegram.
He doesn’t know enough to dodge feet
yet. I scoop him back in this time.</p>
<p>Kate reads the telegram and sits down. She
looks quite calm now. She says, “Well, he died.”</p>
<p>“Huh? Who?”</p>
<p>“My brother. He’s the only person in the
world I know who would send me a telegram.
So he’s dead now.”</p>
<p>She repeats it, and I can’t figure whether to
say I’m sorry or what. I always thought when
someone heard of a death in the family, there’d
be a lot of crying and commotion. Kate looks
perfectly calm, but strange somehow.</p>
<p>“Has he been sick?”</p>
<p>Kate shakes her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t
seen him in twenty years.”</p>
<p>There is silence a moment, and then Kate goes
on, talking half to herself and half to me. “Mean
old coot. He never talked to anyone, except about
his money. That’s all he cared about. Once he
tried to get me to give him money to invest.
That’s the last time I saw him. He has an old
house way up in the Bronx. But we never did
get along, even when we were kids.”</p>
<p>“Did he have a wife or anything? Who sent
the telegram?”</p>
<p>“He’s had a housekeeper. Just as mean as him.
She’d buy him day-old bread and dented cans
of soup because they were cheaper. She suited
him fine—saved him money and never talked to
him. Well, she’ll get his money now, if he left
any. That’s what she’s been waiting for. She sent
me the wire.”</p>
<p>Twenty years, I think. That’s a long time not
to be speaking to your own brother, and him living
just a ten-cent phone call away. I wonder.
She couldn’t just not give a hoot about him. They
must have been real mad at each other. And mad
at the whole world, too. Makes you wonder what
kind of parents <span class="tei tei-hi"><span style="font-style: italic">they</span></span> had, with one of them growing
up loving only cats and the other only money.</p>
<p>Kate is staring out the window and stroking
the old stray tomcat between the ears, and it hits
me: there isn’t a person in the world she loves or
even hates. I like cats fine, too, but if I didn’t
have people that mattered, it wouldn’t be so
good. I say “So long” quietly and go out.</p>
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