Chapter 2

“I really should get back at it, Mrs. Swann,” Baily would say. “It’s still coming down. I hate to disturb sweet Ginger, though.”

Often, I only pretend to be sleeping when in Baily’s lap. I usually hear every word.

“The snow will be there. Let him, nap,” Katherine would respond. “Let’s play cards.” I think she enjoyed Baily’s company, too. “And call me Miss Kitty. Everyone does.”

I’ve always suspected the origin of my human’s nickname had something to do with her singing voice. She loved to belt out a tune, especially Christmas carols. Katherine would start butchering “Joy to the World” the day after Halloween and keep right on singing through January. Sometimes, I had to hide deep in the closet, behind the box of important papers, valuables, and memorabilia to get away from her caterwauling. No sound so hideous has ever come from me. Still, I’m going to miss her singing this year.

Now that everything has changed.

A few days before Thanksgiving, something sad happened. It was six in the morning. I knew that, because the big fancy clock on the fireplace mantel already festooned with fake pine boughs I often chewed on and then brought back up chimed that many times in my ear, while I was up there licking my haunches. I’m not supposed to take my morning bath on the mantel. I’m not supposed to know how to count to six, either. I do what I do. I know what I know.

I immediately hopped down and headed for Katherine’s room to remind her of my breakfast time, just in case she’d forgotten. Up on the bed, my first attempt to wake her failed. Usually, I only had to lick her cheek once to hear, “Good morning, Ginger.” On those rare occasions when I had to double down, I’d burrow under the covers to make my way to the foot of the bed to bite her toes. Even that didn’t work this time.

“M’row.” I called out for Baily as loudly as I could that morning, and then headed quickly for his room, way on the other side of the house. Over the years, Baily had gone from caring only for the yard, to caring for everything, including Katherine some days, as she was old and sometimes frail. He’d moved into the guest house a few years back, when Katherine found out he was living in his truck. Winter before last, he agreed to settle into a room in the main house, after Katherine took a spill on the slippery sidewalk in town.

“M’row.”

“Hey, Ginger.” Baily sat up, looking like something I’d dragged in, his lips smacking, his brunette hair on end, like mine whenever a raccoon intruder has the nerve to wander through the backyard. “How we doing this morning?” After a few strokes down my back, he tried to calm his bedhead, flashing more disheveled hair under one arm.

“M’row.”

I rarely had to wake Baily. Within a second of getting his bearings, “Miss Kitty?” he realized something was amiss and called to her as he slipped on a sweatshirt from the floor.

Baily doesn’t keep the neatest room, which is okay by me. I like sleeping on dirty clothes sometimes. The fleece pajama pants he wore featured my face as part of my officially licensed Ginger the Cat clothing line, and my fur because I’d climbed up into the laundry basket right after Baily had taken his underwear and pajama bottoms from the dryer. I like sleeping on clean clothes, too.

Out the door with great haste and worry, I took the lead, “Miss Kitty?” as Baily called to Katherine again.

Back in my first human’s bedroom, he confirmed the tragic news.

“Poor Miss Kitty. Poor us, Ginger.”

A lot of people were in and out of the house over the next few days. I hid out upstairs in the den closet a lot. Sometimes, Baily would hide out with me, in the den, not the closet, where I’d try to comfort him whenever he cried.

“Excuse me, we’d really prefer no one be in here,” one of the intruders informed us one morning.

Baily stood from down on the floor, raising me up as I cuddled in his arms. “I’m sorry?”

Were it not for my G-rated celebrity image, I might have gone with, “Who the hell are you?” I’d watched the buttoned up, not a hair out of place, shiny dress shoes wearing, bespectacled man come into our home and take right over. Though I had never seen him before that day, he walked around with an air of arrogance, greeting other guests, offering coffee and canapes with apologies, as if the ones Baily had chosen were not good enough, all the while speaking of my human as if he knew her. Some of the people who’d stopped by after Katherine had been taken out were neighbors. Some claimed to be fans. My first human’s adult children were in and out, and her lawyer came by, the one with whom she talked about me a lot. He’d visited more than any family member. This guy standing in front of us now reminded me of the lawyer, someone else, too. Though I was quite certain I’d never fallen asleep on his lap, there was something familiar in his hazel eyes and mannerisms.