Spiral

hard, and on top of that she’s gotten some kind of flu. Nothing that’ll kill her, but—” You could see Drew wince as his own words struck him. ”Christ, John, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
    ”Don’t sweat it. We’re all a little off from this thing.”
    ”Right.” Then a hesitation before, ‘Yeah.”
    He turned, and I followed him up the front stairs.
    At the second-floor landing, Drew opened his apartment door. ”And don’t worry about Renfield.”
    Jesus. Not only hadn’t I been worrying about Nancy’s cat: I’d completely forgotten the poor little guy existed.
    Drew said, ”We’ve been feeding him and doing the litter box. My wife even carries him down to our place sometimes so he has somebody to play with, and Mom cuts up scraps from the table.”
    I cleared my throat. ”He likes that.”
    ‘Yeah.” Drew hesitated again. ‘You, uh, need any help up there?”
    ”I don’t think so, but thanks.”
    As Drew closed his door, I climbed to the third floor. At the landing, I could hear scratching sounds coming from the other side of Nancy’s door.
    Renfield.
    I turned the knob and pushed slowly. As soon as the door was ajar, a gray tiger head was forcing the issue, scuttling out crablike on rear legs that had some kind of congenital defect requiring them to be literally, clinically broken and reset by the vet. Because Nancy had been flying— God, it hit me hard enough, I nearly went down.
    I closed my eyes, steadying myself. When I opened them again, I could see Renfield, now trundling toward his food dish in the corner of the kitchen. He sat back on his haunches and looked up at me, meowing once.
    After Renfield’s operation, I’d had to pick him up from the animal hospital because Nancy was... away. Given what he’d been through—including having his hindquarters shaved down to the skin for the surgery—the cat had kind of imprinted on me as a substitute parent. At least, that’s how the vet explained it. When I was around Renfield, he paid unusual attention to me, including licking my hand and always trying to crawl into my lap by rearing up awkwardly and pawing my pant leg with his clawless front feet.
    Right now, though, he just cried again.
    I walked over to the food bowl. Full of the dry cereal stuff as well as some fresh-looking canned glop.
    As soon as I was near him, I noticed Renfield stopped crying and began chowing down. When I turned and started to walk away, he cried a third time. Turning back around, I saw the cat was staring at me.
    I turned for good this time and went past Nancy’s bedroom to the living room in the front of the third floor. It was exactly as we’d left it twelve days before. From behind me, I heard a rhythmic, bonking sound.
    The noise Renfield’s rear knees made against the hardwood floor, his legs churning like the linkage on a locomotive’s wheels.
    As soon as he crossed the threshold into the living room, Renfield stopped before looking up and crying some more.
    I went over to him and bent down. He started licking my hand, his tongue like sandpaper. Then an almost fierce purring began.
    ”Renfield, I’m so sorry.”
    I walked carefully past him as he tried to move between my shoes.
    In Nancy’s bedroom, I opened her closet door to get the one suit I left there. That scent of her rocketed my memory back to the departure lounge for Flight #133.
    I grabbed the hanger holding my suit and closed the door, trying not to inhale.
    Renfield, now at the bedroom sill, cried again.
    I kept only a few other things at Nancy’s place. Two shirts, three pairs of underwear, five (for some reason) socks, all in ”my” drawer of her dresser. And a dopp kit on top of her bathroom’s toilet tank.
    Renfield was at the bathroom threshold now, crying some more.
    I stepped over him and toward the kitchen. Above the sink, Nancy had thumbtacked a photo she’d gotten some obliging tourist to take of us when we were at the beach together the prior summer. Judith Harker was the name, from somewhere in Arizona, I knew, because I had to give her my business card so she could mail the print to us. In the shot, Nancy and I were on a blanket, sitting with our knees up and touching each other, my right arm around her shoulders, Nancy’s left hand resting on my left wrist over my left knee. I-wore a yearbook smile, Nancy the same but with her eyes crossed, mugging for the camera.
    I tried to remember another photo of just us, together. I couldn’t.
    Almost two years, and