“I know you do.” I lay a hand on her back, ignoring Gimpy’s low growl. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
“No.” Deedee shakes her head.
“It’s all right. Let’s go call Bernadette. She said she’d watch you. I can run you back home and—”
“No! That’s not it.” She shrugs off my hand, her movement summoning another dangerous sound from the Gimp. Damned cat. “I don’t want to go. I’m the flower girl.”
“Okay,” I say in my most soothing voice. “Then let’s go get you cleaned up. The ceremony is about to start.”
“I can’t,” she whispers.
“Okay, then we’ll call Bernie. Fern won’t be mad. We—”
“No! You don’t understand.”
Of course I don’t! Argh. Kids. Why did I think I would be able to pull this parenting thing off? I start to run a hand through my hair, then remember it’s pulled up into a knot and rub my neck instead. “I’m sorry, Dee,” I sigh. “I don’t understand. I need you to help me. Remember we talked about this, how I’m going to suck at this sometimes and I’ll need your help?”
“My mama would know what to do.”
“I know she would.”
“She knew all about cats. She knew they were bad sometimes.”
Cats? I cast a glance down at her lap, where the Gimp is glaring at me with more mean in his eyes than usual. “Is something wrong with Gimpy? Did he eat something again?”
“No,” she says, then adds in a whisper. “I think he’s turned bad.”
“He was always bad, honey. So let’s leave his fluffy butt in his basket and—”
“I can’t. He won’t let me go. I tried to get up before, but he wouldn’t let me.”
I look back down to where Deedee’s fingers tangle in Gimpy’s fur, unable to imagine any reason she can’t move her hands. This is weird. But Deedee’s a weird little kid. It’s one of the things I love about her. I’ll play along and get her back to the wedding and hope another Coke or three puts her in a less melancholy mood. “Okay,” I say with a nod. “I’ll take care of this. When a cat turns bad there’s only one thing to do.”
“What?” she asks, eyes wide.
“A dish of half-and-half,” I say reaching for Gimp. “It gets rid of—Shit!” I curse as Gimpy lashes out with his claws, leaving scratches that fill with red on the back of my hand. “You little rat!” He’s never scratched me before. And I’m not about to put up with it now. I reach for him again, but he stops me with fully bared fangs.
“See?” Deedee sobs. “He’s bad. He’s turned evil.”
Something is wrong with Gimpy. Something is very wrong. I worry that he’s eaten something that’s finally tipped him from lovable crazy to feral crazy. I worry that he’s caught rabies.
I don’t worry that he’s turned evil.
Even when I dive for his shoulders and pull him, hissing and clawing, away from Deedee, dragging him across the paving stones, I don’t consider the validity of her argument. She’s just a kid with an oversized imagination jumping to weird conclusions.
And then I look down and see the ripple across his fuzzy underbelly, the thing pressing against his stomach from the inside, the thing that looks a lot like a tiny hand.
“Shit!” I hurl Gimpy into the flowers and reach for Deedee. “Come on!” She grabs my hand and I sprint for the kitchen as fast as I can in high heels. We slam inside and shove the door closed seconds before Gimpy hits the glass with a growl.
“Shit,” I pant. “Fu—Fudge.”
“You already said shit three times,” Deedee says.
“Don’t cuss.”
“It’s not cussing if you’re repeatin’ what somebody else said.”
“Not now, Dee.” I back away from the door, pulling her with me. Gimpy’s trying to dig through the glass. I know he can’t, but I’ll feel better with some distance between us.
“Are we going to have to shoot him?” Deedee asks in a small voice.
“No.” I squeeze her fingers. “He’s just . . . got . . . an infection. I know someone who can help.” I think so, anyway. The Big Man usually kills animals to get the pixie out, but there has to be another way. “I’ll go talk to him. Right after the ceremony. Come on, let’s get back out front. ”
“What if he comes after us?”
“He won’t.” I hope I’m telling the truth. Gimpy isn’t a fan of large gatherings—or the pixie inside Gimpy isn’t, anyway.
Pixie. Inside my cat. How long has the damned thing been there? Weeks? Months? Since the very beginning? Did I adopt a pixie back in August? Who is Gimpy? Do I even know him at all?
“This is nuts,” I whisper beneath my breath as Deedee and I hurry through the long hall leading to the front of the house.
“Your life is nuts,” Deedee says.
I freeze, only realizing we’re still holding hands when she jerks to a stop beside me. “I know. God, I know . . . Do you want to go back to Sweet Haven? If you do, I understand. I don’t want you to go, but—”
“I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you.”
“Even though my life is nuts? And probably going to stay nuts?”
She cocks her head, and shoots me that look she gives me when I’m being especially confusing. Like when I tell her I don’t care if she makes her bed because it’s going to get unmade, anyway. Or that she can leave her clothes on the floor as long as she keeps track of which ones are clean. Or that it’s fine to drink out of the same water glass for a day or three in the name of dirtying fewer dishes. “Don’t you like me anymore?”
“I love you.” I wipe the tear streaks from her face with my nonbloody hand. “I just—”
“I love you, too.” She sniffs, and shrugs her narrow shoulders. “Nothing else matters.”
Nothing else matters. I’m not sure she’s right . . . but I’m not sure she’s wrong, either. I only know that I’m strangely relieved. Deedee is a terrifying responsibility, but she’s also slowly making me someone stronger than I thought I could be. “You’re right.” I nod. “We’re family. You and me and Gimpy. Once we get him fixed.”
“And Tucker,” Deedee says.
“Yes, and Tucker.” For now, I silently add. But what else is there, really? There’s now and what we make now, and for now Tucker makes my now a lot nicer. “Come on.” I shake her arm. “Let’s go marry some people.”
She starts to walk, but stops a second later and swipes her arm across her face. “Do I look okay?”
I glance down at her—her slightly fuzzy braids and the cat-hair-covered front of her dress and the fresh snot trail on her arm—and say, “You’re beautiful,” and hug her tight. “The beautifulest.”
She lays her damp cheek on my stomach and hugs me back and it’s the sweetest hug I can remember. And when it’s over we hold hands all the way through the front hall, past a smiling, anxious Fern, and out into the sun.
STACEY JAY is the author of Dead on the Delta and Blood on the Bayou—part of the Annabelle Lee urban fantasy mystery series—as well as Juliet Immortal and several books for young adults. She lives in an old house down by the Russian River, rides a cruiser bike, and loves a good ghost story. Visit her website at staceyjay.com.
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