“I don’t know.”
His answer was quiet.
It did not satisfy me.
Nothing could have satisfied me.
Lily held Nacho closer.
“We named him Sunny because he slept in the warm spots,” she said.
I looked at the cat in her arms.
He used to do that in my house too.
He used to move across the living room floor as the afternoon light shifted, always following the brightest square.
I wondered how many small things about him belonged to both of us.
“What happened six months ago?” I asked.
Marcus glanced toward the street.
“We moved.”
“Near the parking lot?”
“Two blocks away. The first night, a screen in the laundry room came loose. He got out.”
Lily closed her eyes.
“I forgot to latch it,” she whispered.
Marcus put one hand on her shoulder.
“It was an accident.”
“I checked it,” she said. “I thought I checked it.”
Nacho began kneading her jacket.
I watched his paws move.
The same paws had pressed against my chest the night before.
I had treated that as a promise.
Now I understood it might only have been memory.
Marcus looked at me again.
“We searched every day,” he said. “Lily made the flyers herself. We left food. We talked to everyone in the area. Eli saw one of the flyers at the corner store.”
I handed the picture back.
“No.”
Marcus did not ask what I meant.
“No, what?” he said.
“You can’t take him.”
Lily’s arms tightened around Nacho.
Marcus stood slowly.
“I didn’t say we were going to grab him.”
“He’s mine.”
The words came out before I could soften them.
“He was mine before he was yours.”
Marcus’s face changed.
Not into anger.
Into pain.
“I understand that,” he said.
“No, you keep saying you understand, but you don’t. I lost him because someone broke into my house and left the door open. I searched for four years.”
“And we loved him for almost four years.”
“He got me through my mother’s death.”
Marcus looked down.
“He got Lily through hers.”
The porch went silent.
Lily pressed her face into Nacho’s fur.
I had not known her mother was dead.
I had not wanted to know.
Details made people real.
Real people were harder to push away.
Marcus spoke without looking at me.
“My wife, Dana, got sick when Lily was six. Sunny started sleeping outside her room. After she died, he moved into Lily’s bed and barely left for two months.”
I looked at the child.
Her hands were buried in orange fur.
Nacho was purring.
The sound filled the space between us.
I wanted him to stop.
