Cleo

We stood for what seemed several minutes in the dark together, Cleo tucked under my arm. Our courtship, if that’s what it was, seemed destined to be laced with complications.

“We’ll just have to stay in a motel,” he sighed. “I’ll call a locksmith in the morning.”

The sign outside the motel said “No Pets.” Cleo was smuggled through the lobby inside my handbag, without so much as a mew. Next morning, we met the wry, smiling locksmith at the cottage.

Nestled on the lake’s edge, the old house had been in Philip’s family for three generations. With French doors opening onto a stretch of grass running down to a pumice-laden beach, the setting was more spectacular than anything I’d imagined the previous night. The lake sparkled blue as a Sri Lankan sapphire. A sage-green island rose like an afterthought in the distance.

Cleo stretched gleefully in front of a driftwood fire while Philip and I walked along the river track. We paused at a bend where the river widened and spilled over rocks. Ferns bent over the water’s edge to admire their reflections. A group of midges hung expectantly in the air. If Philip wanted to understand who I was, sooner or later he’d have to know about Sam. There was a possibility the information would destroy our burgeoning romance. To take on an older woman is one thing. Add a couple of readymade kids and the scenario becomes more complicated. If Philip was willing to wade in any deeper, he’d need to try to understand the emotional picture of what it might be like to lose a child. Even if we spent the rest of our lives together and had our own children, there would always be part of me that would remain fenced off from him. The part that loved and grieved for Sam.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” I said, concentrating on a powder puff of cloud in the distance. “Rob and Lydia had an older brother…”

Th e edges of the cloud started peeling away as if it was about to dissolve into the sky. A breeze spiked off the mountains. I shivered inside my city rain jacket. If I’d had more outdoor experience I would’ve thought to bring gloves to a place like this in the depths of winter.

“I know about Sam,” he replied quietly.

“How?” I asked, surprised.

“I read the articles you wrote around the time it happened.”

“Really? What was an army boy doing reading that sort of thing?”

“Your stories were very moving,” he said, staring up at the same cloud for what seemed a long time. “Tell me about Sam.” He took my hand and rubbed it warm.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

He kissed my fingers, cocooned them in his and tucked them protectively in the pocket of his Gore-Tex jacket. “Absolutely.”

As we trudged the rest of the river track with my hand nestled in his pocket he listened to Sam’s story, the funny bits, the sad. I told him how losing a child was like having an arm or leg lopped off, except probably worse. Th at I wasn’t sure how profoundly the experience had affected me, that in fact it still did. No matter how logical I tried to be, how squarely I faced the facts Sam no longer existed, I often continued to set an extra place at the table, and would probably do so for the rest of my life. No doubt there were mothers all over the world officially “recovered” from their grief who did the same thing.

I would have forgiven him if he’d said one of the old clichés like “I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like” or one of the newer ones like “you must be so strong.” But he simply listened. For that I was grateful.

Cleo was waiting in the glow of the fire when we returned.

“And this cat, she’s part of it all,” Philip said, scooping her into his arms. “She’s your connection to Sam, isn’t she?”

Purring loudly, Cleo stretched a lazy paw and patted his neck. She yawned and snuggled into his chest. There was nowhere else she, or I, wanted to be.

Later in the day we went fishing in a dinghy, against a backdrop of mountains tinged candy-floss pink in the sunset. A plump rainbow trout provided dinner for all three of us. We drank red wine and laughed. From a “ticks in boxes” perspective we had little in common, yet we shared something Philip had recognized from the start. We were both strong individuals, unwilling or unable to belong to an in-crowd. In my case, even the out-crowd wouldn’t  have me. It seemed incredible that Philip hadn’t turned away from Sam’s story or the scar of my grief. He’d intuited Cleo’s part in it, too.

I began to realize I was falling in love.

Respect

A cat demands to be treated as an equal. She expects nothing less. Patronize a feline at your peril.

Carrying out a secret affair in a newsroom is like working in a chocolate factory and trying to stay skinny.

“There’s someone called Dustin on the phone for you,” said Nicole, cool and quizzical.