Cat Shining Bright

Ryan returned to the table, tucked Joe back on her lap and took Clyde’s hand again. As Joe watched the two of them, and watched the happy newlyweds across the patio, he was filled with pleasant thoughts—but when he glanced up at the three kittens playing, suddenly his spirit dropped like a heavy weight. Suddenly he realized how lonely life would be now, how very empty with Striker and Buffin leaving home, leaving their mother and Wilma, leaving the nest where they were born. Joe watched the two buff kittens batting at Courtney through the potted daisies, he watched them look up as if laughing, to where the Firettis sat, and the sad feeling filled him, the cold knowledge that tonight their two boy kittens would have a new home.

Buffin and Striker had made their own decision. Not Joe nor Dulcie nor Wilma meant to forbid them. The boys had bonded with the Firettis, with these two loving humans; they had bonded with the life of the hospital. They would not be going home with Dulcie and Wilma when the party was over. Even when he looked up at Courtney playing happily with her brothers, he saw a lonely sadness touch the little calico’s face, he knew she’d miss Buffin and Striker, and his own dismay nearly choked him. Dulcie reached out to him from where she lay in Wilma’s lap, her soft paw covered his paw and he saw the same loneliness on both Dulcie’s and Wilma’s faces.

But it was the kittens’ right to step out into the first chapter in their new lives. He looked around the patio at the rest of the party, so happy, talking, laughing, congratulating bride and groom. He didn’t want Kate and Scotty to see his sour mood, to put a painful note on the wedding—Voletta had done enough of that. Though her destructive temper tantrum had caused as much amusement as anger.

Clyde rose to change the music to the old forties hits that they all loved, and as a CD belted out Artie Shaw, half a dozen couples were soon dancing. Max danced the first dance with the bride. At the next number he handed her over to Scotty. After several dances, Kate returned to the kitchen to cut small slices of what was left of the wedding cake. She wrapped each in foil, and handed them around to all the single officers, gleaning laughs and a few startled looks. “This is not to eat, it’s to sleep on. It might not be traditional,” she said, “for men to get the wedding cake and dream of their brides. But who knows, stranger things have happened.” That gained more laughter and rude teasing, enough to make her blush. When she gave the two female detectives their cake, Juana Davis said it was a bit late in her life, when she was already expecting a grandchild. But beautiful young Detective Ray smiled and tucked the cake safely in her pocket.

The bride and groom stayed for a half-dozen more dances before they departed. They were there for the sad moment when Mary and John Firetti cuddled the two boy kittens and headed home—the kittens receiving many kisses from Dulcie and Courtney and Wilma, and nose nudges from Kit and Joe and Pan. It wasn’t as if they were leaving Molena Point, they were only a few rooftops away. Joe thought of Buffin’s future, of the many animals he might help, and maybe humans, too. As for Striker, that kitten knew the number of roofs from the clinic to MPPD as well as to his father’s house, and of course he knew the way back to his mother.

“I’m not leaving for good,” he told Joe. “But right now Buffin needs me, and the Firettis need both of us. And,” the big kitten said, “the first time you need a partner, I’m right there with you.”

Wilma and Dulcie and Courtney left shortly afterward, Wilma carrying them both, Dulcie wiping tears with her paw. Heading home, Wilma was satisfied that the threat of housebreakers was past. Those who had wanted the Bewick book knew well enough it was locked in MPPD’s evidence room—or, they thought the rare volume was there. They had no idea the real book was only ashes. Now the thieves’ minds would be on other matters, on lawyers, on the county attorney, and on their imminent indictments.

Party-cleanup time was plate-licking time for Joe and Pan and Kit. Trash was bagged and taken out, the kitchen given a quick wipe-down, the chairs and tables folded and stacked, then Ryan collapsed on the couch. Upstairs, Snowball woke at the silence and came padding down from her retreat to be hugged and petted and loved; the little cat might not like crowds and parties but she loved the attention afterward that centered on her, alone.