I huffed out a chuckle of disbelief. "You're unbelievable," I sighed. "Door's in the kitchen."
Of course he started off walking to it first, but rather than get all affronted, I quietly smiled. Jonah was...Jonah. He didn't know how to hang back and let other's take charge.
"How did she get in the ceiling in the first place?" he asked as we trundled down the stairs.
"She's...a cat? I have no idea. I think cat's exist in an alternate dimension from us. I was looking for her this morning because her food bowl was full, so I was shaking her treats and started hearing these little tiny mews coming up through the floor. Took me forever to realize she wasn't stuck in a closet somewhere."
"What's her name?"
"Ginger. I know it's a cliche for an orange cat. I let my kindergartners vote on the name."
"What came in second place?"
"Meow."
"Should have gone with that." He looked kind of charmed.
"I think he misunderstood the question and was answering the sound a cat made, but half of the class went with it." I pulled out the chair and pointed. "I think if you come at her this way, she might actually back up enough that I can grab her over here."
He looked up. "She is literally in the ceiling."
"Literally."
"How do you know she's right here?"
I called up above us. "Ginge-y? You still up there or did the dust bunnies eat you?"
A faint, squeaky mew filtered down through the tile. Jonah shrugged as if to say "well there you go." He poked the tile up and peered in. "I don't see a...oh hello."
"Is she there?"
"Ssh," he hushed me. "You're a pretty kitty, right?" he cooed. I glanced down to see that his hand was moving slowly, and deliberately upward. "You don't want to be in the dirty ceiling, right?" I bit my tongue and chose not to hear that as an insult. "You want to come back down and eat some treats with your mommy, right little kitten?"
Then there was a bang, and a hiss, and Jonah's triumphant, "gotcha!" and all at once he stepped back down, cradling my tiny little kitten in his huge hands.
I swear I heard an audible pop, and assumed it was my heartstrings getting tugged by the sight of a big man with a tiny animal.
"You smell like dust," Jonah observed, stroking her little head. She lifted her paw and batted at his fingers, trying like hell to gnaw on them. "Hey, I need those."
"Thank you," I said, and it came out all stiffly because I was still trying to process the sight of him right now. "I guess I was being too hesitant."
"She's a feisty one," he said, wincing as Ginger clamped down with her tiny needle teeth. "Maybe keep the basement door closed?"
"Good idea. She would absolutely do this again just out of spite," I agreed.
He chuckled, stroking her fuzzy head, setting off a thunderous purr. She closed her eyes, stretching out so he could scratch under her chin.
I realized I was grinning like an idiot. "Oh, um, you want some coffee? Tea?" I blinked. "Why did you come here in the first place?"
"To rescue a kitten, of course," he said, following me back up the stairs. When I had deliberately latched the door, he set Ginger back down again. She arched her back and did a little hopping dance, then bit my ankle and charged off, probably to wedge herself somewhere else inconvenient.
I rolled my eyes. "Why are you really here?" I asked him.
He shifted on his feet.
"Sit down," I ordered. "You're making me nervous being all big in my tiny kitchen."
He obediently sat down. "I went down to the shed this morning."
I flexed my fingers. "Where Gid and Izzy lived?"
He nodded.
"Izzy is all moved out now, right?" I couldn't keep the heavy sadness out of my voice.
His eyes got that shining look to them again. The one I had thought had something to do with the wind getting in them. But there was no wind in my kitchen. "It's empty," he said, his voice strangely tight. "Nothing but dust."
I swallowed. "Yeah."
"It hasn't ever been empty," he went on. "Not since I can remember. There's not even a leftover sock to show he was there."
"You have his shirt," I said, pointing.
Faint color rose to his cheeks. "Mom found it in mixed in with the towels." He brushed his hand over it. "I didn't think you'd notice."
"Course I would. That was his Friday shirt."
Jonah looked at me. "He wore this on Fridays? Only?"
"Your uncle didn't like to waste brain power on such trivial things as wardrobes. He had higher thoughts to think."
Jonah fell quiet. "Ruby?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we listen to the tapes?" He licked his lips. "Together?"
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jonah
"All this time I've had these," she was saying as her voice floated down from the rafters. "And I never really thought through how I would listen to them."
"You okay up there?" I was holding the ladder and trying not to sneak peeks at her round, nicely curved ass. We were both wedged in a closet in her second bedroom, the only access point to her attic a panel in the ceiling. If she stumbled, my hands were right there to grab her. Which might be a problem.
"I'm fine." She was a body without a head as she poked around in the crawlspace. "I think... yeah this is it."
I heard a scrape and then a thud and then she made a triumphant noise. "Here it is!' she cried, banging the ancient tape recorder against the rungs so close to my head it made my hair ruffle.
"How old it this thing?" I wondered, deftly taking it from her before she brained me. "It looks pure 70s."
"1980 exactly, as a matter of fact," she corrected, hopping down off the ladder. "Apparently it was the height of technology because of these." She pointed.
"A dual deck, nice."
She trundled the ladder out of the closet and set it against the wall. Then she looked at me with those big eyes of hers. There was atightness in her smile, but she was smiling and that was good enough to make me smile back. "Are you ready?"
I took a deep breath. My first instinct was to scoff. Of course I was. Except. "I'm not sure," I confessed, letting my breath out in a long, slow inhale.
"You're worried you're going to hate it?"
"How did you know?"
"I feel the same way. I always wondered why Gid didn't - "
"Do something with it?"
"I mean he did, back in the day, but this is recent stuff. Stuff he'd been working on..."
"Until he died," I finished. "And whatever his plans were got cut short." My tongue felt too thick in my mouth.
"Yeah," she said, looking down.
I took a deep breath, needing to force the words past my own possessiveness. "Are you really okay with me hearing them?" I asked her.
She widened her eyes. I nodded and swallowed, enunciating each word so that I was sure to hear them too. "I was pissed," I said. "Yesterday. Because I was like, why would Gid give them to her and not me? But then I realized, whatever claim I felt like I had to this music was less than the claim you had. He gave it to you. And," I let out a long, slow breath. "And I wasn't around."