You Make Me Tremble Page 14

  But it wasn’t her house. And Chert wasn’t her dog. And Iris…well, Iris wasn’t her person.

  The bungalow, the dog, and Iris would all go on with their lives here once Casey had left. Her space would be taken up by new interns, and Chert would eventually leave with his owners. The signs of the earthquake were already dwindling at the shelter, carted off and stacked on a pile to be burned. She didn’t belong here, not like Iris did.

  Casey had been wandering this morning, not really doing anything worthwhile besides collecting her instruments. She got up with a sigh and stretched her lower back. Without incoming measurements or fences to repair, she had no excuse for staying. She started walking toward her truck with Chert close behind.

  She drove the long way back to Iris’s, traveling around the entire island and stopping now and again to walk across crunchy, dried winter grass and stand at the edge of the water. The views changed dramatically as she drove, from Washington’s mainland to the smaller islands in the San Juan archipelago, to Canada.

  When she finally returned to the shelter, the afternoon was fading to dusk. She parked, and Chert ran ahead of her to the bungalow. He ran down the hall, while she went to the fireplace and started building a fire. She’d stay another night in this cozy little home with the dog for company. Maybe she’d go talk to Iris, try to get them to a more comfortable place before she left. They could write to each other. Skype. Visit.

  Or not.

  Casey was about to light the kindling when she noticed Chert standing in the hallway and staring at her. Something about the way he was acting made her nervous all of a sudden, and she got up quickly, dropping the box of matches and scattering them across the floor. She hurried down the hall and stepped over the baby gate, looking for the cat under the bed and in the towel-lined box in the closet, but she wasn’t there.

  Casey clambered back over the gate and went into her bedroom, where she found Chert staring in her closet. She heard a forlorn, low yowl and peered around the closet door, seeing only the shape of the cat on the floor and blood before she stepped back again. She grabbed Chert and coaxed him into the bathroom, shutting the door tightly to keep him from going back into her room. She ran outside and over to Iris’s house where she banged on the door until she heard Iris call for her to come in.

  “Iris? It’s the cat. Something’s wrong,” she said, gasping, winded from her panicked run even though she hadn’t gone more than a few yards. Iris was standing next to her kitchen counter, holding a bag of flour in one hand, but she recovered from her surprise quickly and dropped the flour next to a pile of groceries.

  “Come on,” she said, jogging out the door. “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Casey said, willing herself not to cry. “I just got home and found her in my closet. I should have come back earlier. I should have checked on her as soon as I got inside.”

  “Don’t panic,” Iris said, climbing the stairs and entering the bungalow. “And don’t blame yourself. I checked on her an hour ago and she was under her bed looking normal.”

  “She’s in there,” Casey said, pulling Iris’s arm to stop her from going to the back bedroom and pointing toward her own room. “In the closet.”

  Casey stood back while Iris quietly approached the closet and looked inside. She was still for a moment, and then she crouched down just outside the door.

  “Is she okay?” Casey asked. She could hear Chert whining from inside the bathroom. “What should I do?”

  “Well, for starters, you might want to go online and buy a new sweatshirt,” Iris said in a low, non-urgent voice.

  “What?”

  “A sweatshirt. I doubt you’ll want to wear this one anymore. It’s covered in kittens.”

  Iris was grinning at her, so Casey assumed the kittens were alive and well. She went over to the bed and sat down with a thump as the adrenaline coursed through her system with nothing useful to do. She tucked her trembling hands under her thighs. She had been so afraid something was terribly wrong, and she felt something lingering under her relief. Something strangely resembling anger. Why did people get pets when there was always a threat of losing them?

  “I saw blood,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to keep her voice steady. “I thought she was…”

  “She’s fine, Casey,” Iris said. “Birth can be a messy process, but from what I can see right now, everything seems normal.” She paused, with a thoughtful look. “I didn’t expect you to be the squeamish type.”

  “I’m not. At least I don’t think I am. I’ve never really had a chance to find out.”

  “You’ve never seen blood before?”

  “Of course I have. Just not like this.” Casey still felt afraid, an unfamiliar experience for her. And guilty. She should have been here to help with the birth somehow, but given her reaction to a little blood, she figured the cat had been better off without her.

  She heard Chert’s insistent whine again, but she wasn’t sure if she should let him out. Iris got up and unhooked the baby gate, putting it in front of Casey’s door instead. She let Chert out of the bathroom, and he stood at the gate with his nose pressed between the bars and his tail waving rhythmically. Casey wanted to look away from him, to keep herself from liking his company and looking forward to taking him in the truck with her, but she couldn’t make herself follow logic this time. She got up and knelt by the gate, petting the dog and reassuring him—and herself—that everything was okay.

  “I’ll be right back,” Iris said from the hallway side of the gate. She turned to leave, but Casey called her back.

  “Wait, you can’t go.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Iris said. “I’m only going to the office to get a scale and some forms. You can look at them, you know.”

  Casey hesitated for a moment, but she was curious because she didn’t think she had ever seen a newborn anything. She’d had a couple of friends who had babies, but she hadn’t been around them until they were a few months old. She crawled the few steps to the closet door and looked inside. The gray cat regarded her with half-closed eyes, but she didn’t seem upset or nervous with Casey there.

  Six miniature kittens were stacked in a row, nursing from their mother and making kneading motions with their tiny paws. Casey didn’t realize how long she had been staring at them, barely breathing, until she heard Iris’s voice.

  “Aren’t they sweet? I just need to weigh them and check genders, then we’ll leave them alone.”

  She sat cross-legged next to Casey and put the cardboard box from the other bedroom and a small scale with a bowl on top of it between them before reaching into the closet and extracting one of the kittens.

  “Is that a kitchen scale?” Casey asked as Iris gently laid the kitten in the bowl and noted its weight on her form.

  “Yes. But don’t worry, I’ll wash it out before I use it to cook food.”

  “Very comforting. I’ll remember that the next time I eat something you’ve made. Are you taking them away from her?”

  Her voice rose slightly as Iris put the little black kitten into the box, and Iris reached over and patted Casey on the knee. “No, I’m not. I’ll put the kittens in here, and Momma will follow.”

  “You sound like you’re placating a child,” Casey said, swatting playfully at Iris’s hand.

  “Well, you sound a little like a child.” Iris smiled and weighed another kitten. “Do you want to hold one? Just for a few seconds, since they shouldn’t be handled much until they’re older. And no, you won’t hurt her.”

  Before Casey could protest or run out of the room, Iris nestled the tiny calico in her hands. Casey barely registered her weight, she was so small, but she felt warm, pulsing life transferring through her palms and deep inside her. The kitten was as soft as a handful of cotton balls, and she mewed and stretched with her eyes squinted shut.

  Casey looked up and saw Iris watching her, sharing the wonder Casey was feeling. She carefully placed the kitten in the box next to her sister, and
the two of them searched blindly for their mother.

  “I’ve never held anything so tiny and alive,” Casey said as Iris finished weighing the kittens.

  “They’re very vulnerable right now,” Iris said. She scooted the box into the closet and lifted the gray cat inside where she began licking Casey and Iris cooties off her babies. “They can’t see or hear or move very far. They’re completely reliant on her and on us. It’s a huge responsibility.”

  Casey nodded as she considered Iris’s words. Like most of the things Iris said and wrote, the short sentence seemed to have several possible meanings. Maybe she was talking about her responsibility to the shelter and its residents and what it meant to her. Or maybe she was thinking about human children and parents, continuing the conversations she and Casey had shared the day before.

  Casey got to her feet and reached for Iris’s hand, pulling her up until they stood close together, facing each other.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” Casey said. She placed her palm on Iris’s neck, feeling both of their heartbeats at once. “I didn’t mean to be insulting.”

  “I know,” Iris said. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but Casey felt it vibrate through her palm. “I overreacted. I guess I’m a slow simmer kind of woman, not a bright but short-lived flare. I’m not brave enough for the kind of relationship you offered.”

  “Not brave? Are you kidding?” Casey laughed and gestured toward the closet with her hand, keeping the other one resting against Iris’s skin. She felt power and passion just under the surface, but Iris didn’t seem ready to set them free. “You had no idea what you’d find in that closet, especially after I freaked out in your kitchen, but you didn’t hesitate to go in there. You were ready to do whatever had to be done. You’re very brave, Iris.”

  Casey wanted to kiss her, to repeat last night with a different ending this time, but she wasn’t ready to be rejected again. And she couldn’t promise anything more than a few days or hours together.

  She kissed Iris’s forehead instead, and then stepped away, dragging her hand away from Iris as if it had a will of its own and would rather stay close to her.

  “Brave is knowing what you want and not accepting anything less,” Casey said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  What did she want? Iris asked herself the question over and over during the night, but she wasn’t comfortable with her answers. She was the one who had pushed Casey away, and she was the one who could bridge the gap between them if she chose to. She had felt it in Casey’s touch last night, as the weight of her hand had rested against Iris’s neck, pouring strength and desire into Iris’s bloodstream like a transfusion.

  So why was she hesitating? She wanted Casey. She didn’t necessarily want a permanent relationship—she was busy enough as it was with her shelter and her cards. She didn’t honestly believe Casey was treating her like a convenient warm body, but instead she felt that Casey was as surprised by their mutual attraction as she was. Casey just had the guts to make a move. Iris wasn’t sure she could do the same.

  Casey was probably long gone, anyway, she told herself as she left the house and headed toward the bungalow to check on the kittens. Casey wasn’t in the small house, but there were signs of her continued presence at the shelter—a sweater draped across a kitchen stool and a pile of gray stones on the counter. Iris laughed to herself. Surely Casey wouldn’t leave such treasures behind.

  Iris peeked at the cat. She was curled in a ball and sound asleep with her six kittens tucked on all sides. Her food and water bowls were full and close to the box. Iris backed out of the room quietly and went back through the kitchen. She paused by the counter for a moment and picked up one of the rocks. It looked like nothing special, nothing she didn’t see thousands of times a day in her garden or on the beach, but she was sure Casey had a story for each rock in the pile.

  Iris picked them up one by one and imagined Casey’s voice spinning stories for them. This one had probably lined the first campfire ever created by a Neanderthal, and this one might have come from the first crack during the big bang. Iris smiled. Casey was a scientist and knew the real history of these stones, but she was a storyteller, too. She saw beauty and romance in the past.

  Iris pictured Casey as she had looked last night, with awe and wonder in her expression as she held the tiny calico in her hands. Casey studied the past, the history of the earth written in the shape of the islands and the minerals contained in them, but how much time did she spend in the present, with living beings? She made friends easily and seemed to have connected with the locals, but she had a distance about her when she was with other people. It disappeared when she was in the field, talking about her beloved quartz and feldspar. Iris had seen hints of the same engagement when Casey was with Chert and when she had watched the gray cat and her kittens.

  And when she had kissed Iris. Casey had been right there with her, borderless and open. Iris needed to realize what a gift that was. Casey wasn’t offering forever, but she was offering something she seemed to hold close most of the time.

  Maybe Iris would take a chance and continue the conversation she and Casey had begun in Friday Harbor. She claimed to live in the present—why not make it a wonderful one, even if only for a few hours?

  Maybe. If Casey was still around after Iris finished her work. Or maybe tonight, if Casey was still here after dinner.

  Or maybe tomorrow, if Casey hadn’t left the island.

  Iris sighed as she walked up the path to the converted barn where all the cats lived. She risked continuing with her maybes until Casey was a distant memory.

  Iris went through the first door and into the tiny foyer, barely big enough for two people but large enough to do the job of preventing a cat escape. She closed the door firmly behind her and went through the second door. A chorus of meows greeted her, and she nearly tripped as four cats wound around her ankles.

  She hurried to get bowls of food on the ground before any squabbles broke out among the feline residents, and then she slowed down and did a more thorough check of the rooms and the cats. The barn had been on the property when Iris bought it, but it had been badly in need of repair and only used for storage. Now it was insulated and heated, with running water, a small kitchen, and a room where they could treat sick or injured animals and keep them safely isolated from the others. She had a few antisocial cats who were kept in a separate area in the back of the barn, but most of the shelter cats lived in the large main space that was full of climbing toys and soft places to sleep. Cat House duty wasn’t the most pleasant, with what seemed like miles of litter boxes to clean twice a day, but Iris had never heard anyone complain about the job. She had to make a rotating schedule when there were interns on the property—not because she had to force them to work in here, but because she wanted to give everyone a fair chance to have time with the cats.

  Iris systematically worked her way through the chore list, cleaning food bowls, freshening water, and scooping boxes. She tried to keep on task, but the cats distracted her as they always did. Balls of fluff went tumbling and wrestling by her feet every time she walked from one end of the room to the other, and some of the more playful cats swiped at her hands every time they moved. Iris felt the stretch of a smile on her face whenever she was in here.

  When she finished the to-do list, she lingered for a few minutes and visited with the cats. She was meticulous about keeping the room clean because of the number of them in here. The room never reeked of unchanged litter, but the air was always heavy with the smell of animal and fur. She was lucky she didn’t suffer from allergies. Otherwise, she’d need an epinephrine shot every time she walked into the barn.

  Iris picked up an orange cat and held it close, feeling its purrs rumbling through her. She was getting more calls every day from people who were returning to the islands and searching for lost pets. After talking to more than one owner who had been frantic about their animals but unable to locate them in the shelter system, Iris had come up with a
plan for creating a single database she and the humane society and the other shelters could use to spread the word about the animals they had rescued. If there was another disaster or earthquake—or, as Casey would insist, when there was another one—Iris and others like her would be prepared to communicate with each other and with owners.

  But people were slowly finding her. And most likely, Chert’s owners would eventually be among them. Casey had been adamant about not being able to have a dog in the city, whether as a preemptive strike against getting attached to Chert or because her lifestyle really wouldn’t let her have him, but maybe she could have a cat. Something warm and soft waiting for her at home, but an easier pet for a busy apartment dweller to handle than a large and active dog.

  Iris gave the orange cat one more hug, and then she let him loose among his friends. Maybe she’d bring up the cat idea, if Casey was still around later today. The little calico would be looking for a good home once she was old enough to leave her mother…

  With all her big plans about what she’d do if Casey stuck around, Iris wasn’t sure if she should feel pleased or anxious when she got back to the kennel and saw Casey in the exercise yard with Chert. She stood by the gate for a few minutes and watched Casey trying to lure the dog up the ramp with a treat. He went around and under the ramp without hesitation, even hopping over the low end once, but he refused to step on it. He seemed happy, lolling his tongue out to one side and dropping into play posture whenever Casey tapped her hand on the ramp. Casey looked a little frustrated.