Sylv knocked my arm, pushing me a little, a tiny movement followed with a smile as we walked through the crowd. I knew then that his fussing was over. For now.
“You kiss him yet?” He didn’t want to know, I could tell with how he rolled his eyes and made smooching sounds with his puckered lips. “Dempsey and Sookie sitting in a tree…”
“Oh shut up.” I messed his hair, popping him on the back of the head. “You tease me and maybe I will go tell Mama about you and Lily.” My brother’s eyes went all funny, like he was scared if Mama knew what he’d been up to there’d be a whipping in his future. But he tried to play it off, act like my threat didn’t bother him none.
“Tell her.” I didn’t buy the way he shrugged or how he brushed me off with a toss of his hand.
“Okay. I’m going.” And as I took off, jogging through the crowd with my fussing brother running behind me, I tried to stay tickled. I tried to not worry so much over Dempsey being hurt again. I tried something fierce to keep from reminding myself that the best thing for him, for all of us, would be to let him be.
If only I could muster the strength to do that.
Four
Willow
Nash called me a witch. He didn’t know I heard him, but I had. It came in a mumble, something low and quiet as I rubbed his temples, as he drifted off and I knew why. He floated, went where you’re supposed to when you meditate. He could call me a witch all he wanted. I wasn’t. I liked to think of myself as a healer. Someone who touched and held and wanted nothing more than to help.
But Nash struck me as the type of man who needed to put a name to things he didn’t understand. Usually, the wrong name. He was a man of science, of things concrete, that could be broken down and explained away. Numbers were his thing. They moved in and out of his head, sang to his soul because they made sense to him.
Two days after I helped him get some rest, he was still having vivid dreams. I knew he was. I heard him calling out in the middle of the night. I heard him for the past three nights, moaning and whining, though he’d never own up to it.
It was Nash that took up most of my thoughts that day at the farmer’s market. Sundays were always packed. I'd been doing pretty well selling my cupcakes to folks ambling by, their bags full of organic vegetables and sweet berries and plums. Everyone was in high spirits, at least until the skies opened up. Things thinned out pretty quick then. It came down in buckets and each one, it seemed, right on the top of my head. Cabs passed me by and so I ran, darting under awnings as much as I could and then, God help me, I spotted that poor cat.
He limped toward my building, all skitterish and slinky, like he was doing his best to not be spotted because bad things happened to him when he was. I hadn’t fussed much about the weather—it was only water, after all—but the rip of thunder cracked bright white lightning against the sky, and the thought of a poor little critter caught out in this storm had me worried. Skinny guy was alone in the world and hurt, from the looks of him, and now soaking wet.
The rain came on like a broken wave; sideways, horizontal, it seemed to splatter and fall in every direction against my face, soaking into the small white boxes of what Nash called “prissy-looking cupcakes”. He’d said itwhen he caught me in the elevator the other night on my way to deliver said prissy cupcakes to a client. The prissiness of them sure hadn’t stopped him from trying to sneak a swipe of icing.
The rain came so thick, so violently, I had to squint as I looked down the sidewalk, trying to catch sight of that poor, scrawny limping cat. My thick Columbia hoodie was soaked through by the time I spotted him ghosting around the corner. I jogged after him to the back of our building. Water collected quickly into puddles, so much that my feet and toes were soaked by the time I made it mid-way down the alley. I dropped one of the sodden white bakery boxes when I tripped on a submerged crack in the pavement, cringing when two yellow-colored cupcakes floated down the gutter, leaving behind a cakey trail as they bobbed and twisted away. I dropped two more empty white boxes before I spotted the cat, scrambling up a tall pin oak tree that sat in the smallest speck of green space beyond the property gate. The poor thing had probably been looking for shelter from the rain but seemed to be having second thoughts, given his sodden look— ears down, tail snapping. Determined to help him, I set down the rest of my boxes and tried to move a nearby dumpster with my hip toward the crooked limbs, intending to climb up and rescue the damned cat.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I jerked, twisting around with a small yelp, brushing my thick, matted hair off my face. Of course it was Nash. “What are you doing out here?”
We had to shout. The rain spattered and crashed against the row of metal trashcans and three dumpsters that lined the back of the alleyway.
“I asked first. Damn, Willow, you’re a fucking mess.” Behind me, the cat meowed, a loud, pathetic sound that tore at something inside my chest. Nash went on gawking at me like I was crazy, clueless, but that sad meow sounded just like “help” to me and I had to do something. When I glanced up at the poor creature, then at the distance between the limb where he sat and the dumpster, I knew it was too high. Too high for me, anyway. I looked around, looked back up at the cat, considered trying to coax it down, looked for any other way up, but there was nothing. All while Nash watched me, both of us drenched to the skin.
I am capable of a lot of things. My mama didn’t raise a dainty damsel watching out for a prince, but even I knew my limitations. As much as it pained me, I exhaled, turning back to Nash as his wet face scrunched up in a hard glare.
“Can you help him?” I came closer, pulling on his wet jacket, imploring. There was something in his eyes—hesitation, irritation, like maybe he was drawn to me and hated that he was, or maybe he was worried and wanted nothing more than to pull me inside, to protect me from the mess I’d gotten myself into. But I didn’t care how he looked or what he thought. He could look at me like that all he wanted. As long as he helped the poor cat. “Please, Nash, look at him. He’s just a baby.”
Okay. That might have been an overstatement. Even I knew the baby in question was the ugliest cat that ever walked the earth and was no baby either. He was small, but scrappy with a thick rat’s nest of a tail that broke into a weird angle in the middle. And one of his ears looked to be eaten clean off with mites or some other disgusting mess alley cats got into. And he was filthy. And pissed off. Still, at that moment, more than anything, I wanted to help that cat.
My mother taught me not to rely on my looks for anything, but come on, sometimes being a woman gives you the upper hand. I adjusted my expression, working up a look I hoped was worried and sad, because I was worried and sad, at least about the lost day and the sad little hurt cat. Maybe I laid it on a little thick because I knew it could work.
And it did work. Oh, he looked me up and down, looked for a way out, but when he finally seemed to admit to himself that my shorter arms and smaller-than-his legs wouldn’t help me climb up that dumpster to rescue the ugly meowing little cat, he gave up the ghost and resigned himself to helping out.
And I didn’t plan it, but suddenly, without any warning, I sneezed, a racking loud sound that made the cat jerk in alarm. “You okay?” Nash asked, and I knew I had him hooked.