Page 20 of Justice & Liberty

I was still trying to decide what came next when the front doorbell rang.

11

Bee metme at the back door, giving a pitiful meow as I came in, like maybe she’d been left alone for years instead of a few hours. I sighed at her. “I was going to the coffee shop, Bee. I don’t think you’re supposed to take cats into restaurants. That’s why we always order in for dinner.”

She meowed again, this time indignant, and I swore I could almost hear words in it. It was why I talked to her—frankly, I got a better conversation out of her than I ever had out of Tanya. Sure, she was a cat, but she always held up her half of a chat. No huffing and going silent or ignoring me for hours because a baseball game was on.

“You can come with me to the shop tomorrow, how about that?” I leaned down and scooped her up into my arms, and she came happily, leaning up to rub her face against mine, like maybe I needed a reminder of who I belonged to.

We went through the house toward the front door like that, and oddly enough, Bee started purring as we approached. Maybe she was expecting dinner, even though I hadn’t yet ordered anything for delivery.

But no, when I made my way to the door and opened itup, everything was suddenly clear. A furry black torpedo launched itself at my chest, and suddenly I was holding not one, but two inky black cats, and they were all over each other, marking and licking and purring so loud it felt like a bass beat in my chest.

For a fraction of a second, I wondered how Bee’s sister Hex had rung the doorbell, but then my brain engaged and I looked up to find September standing there smiling at me. Or, well, at the cats who were all over me and each other.

“Hi, Jaycie,” she said after a moment, reaching up to scratch Bee’s head with her perfectly manicured mauve fingernails. “And hello to you as well, Beelzebub.”

Bee leaned into her and purred, even though she usually only heard her whole first name when she was in trouble. I supposed it made a difference that I called her Beelzebub Frances Jones when she was in trouble, and in a considerably sharper tone.

“It’s good to see you again, Doctor?—”

“Please, honey, call me September. You’ve known me since you were one, and you’re not a child anymore. No reason to worry about proper manners.” I nodded, and she held up a reusable bag. “I’ve got some kibble and cans of food I’ve been giving her in here that I thought you could use. I may have a menagerie, but she was the only cat.”

Menagerie.

“You,” I gasped. She lifted a brow but kept quiet, so I went on. “You’re what Mom did with the chickens.”

She laughed. “Oh boy, already getting those, are you? I kept telling Maggie she needed to build a coop and keep some for herself. I mean, eggs are always useful, right?”

It was a fair point. Besides, I kind of felt like Laverne and I had already bonded, at least a little. So I didn’t rush September back to the porch and insist she take the chickenaway. Instead, I nodded. “A coop. Where exactly does one find one of those?”

She laughed; a low, musical sound, and I realized how much I had missed her over the years I’d been gone. She’d been Mom’s best friend, sure, but she’d always been the best. I’d seen her as my physician for many years, and she was just...like a cup of cocoa on a winter morning. “There are a couple of feed stores in Iowa City, and they always have them. You’ll have to put it together yourself, though, since they come in a big box with instructions. It’s not like you could fit it in a car already put together anyway.”

I blinked a moment, then nodded in understanding. It couldn’t be that much harder than Ikea bookshelves, could it?

Still, I didn’t want her to just hand me Hex and some food and then skedaddle. “I don’t have a lot of food in the house, but do you want some tea? Or, um, I could order food? It’s been ages. I know you were at the”—I swallowed hard, struggling to even say the word funeral, so skipped it instead—“last week. But we didn’t really get to talk much.”

She smiled brightly at me, and I could have cried for how much it reminded me of Mom in that moment. Not that I was going to use September as some kind of Mom-replacement, but it was really nice that I still had her. That she was around, and I could ask her about chicken coops. “Sure, hon. How does fufu sound? There’s a new restaurant in Iowa City, and they actually deliver here.”

“Absolutely delicious,” I declared. Tanya hadn’t liked anything more exotic than pastrami, so I’d mostly only eaten other things at work with Estelle. It was nice to be able to order all things spicy or non-American whenever I felt like it. Besides, fufu, in Iowa? I’d never imagined to see it. “They don’t happen to have egusi stew, do they?”

“As it happens, they do,” she said with a smile as she pulled out her phone.

An hour later, we were sprawled out on the living room sofas with our dinners, cats draped around my shoulders, cuddled up together like they’d never been apart.

“How has Hex been?” I asked September, reaching up to run a hand along the back of the cat in question. While Bee was entirely black, Hex had a little white star on her nose and a single white sock on her back right leg, so it still wasn’t hard to tell them apart.

September smiled sadly over at Mom’s cat. “Missing Maggie. But she’s healthy enough. Like a horse. I’m no vet, but I swear she’s going to outlive us all. Be out there stalking mice on her own after the fall of civilization.”

I grinned back. “Hey, not alone. She’ll have Bee with her.”

At the mention of her name, Bee lifted her head. She looked down at my dinner, then deciding it wasn’t something I could share with her, lowered it again and went back to sleep.

September smiled at that. “It’s good to see them back together. I know Hex missed her.”

I had to swallow hard not to say something about Mom in that moment. Unlike Bee and Hex, I’d had a choice in that separation, and?—

“So, are you planning on reopening the store? I know you used to run it for Mags sometimes back when you were in high school, so you know the basics, at least. And she was never a math person, so I’m sure she has her books set up as simply as possible.”

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