Cat in Glass by Nancy Etchemendy Page B

long while.
    We drove a considerable distance, to a large suburban house, white, with a sprawling yard and a garage big enough for two cars. It was a mansion compared to the house in which Stephen and I had raised her. By way of making polite small talk, I asked if she was married, whether she had children. She climbed out of the car looking irritated. “Of course I’m married,” she said. “You’ve met Jason. And you’ve seen pictures of Sarah and Elizabeth often enough.” Of this I had no recollection.
    She opened the gate in the picket fence, and we started up the neat, stone walkway. The front door opened a few inches, and small faces peered out. The door opened wider, and two little girls ran onto the porch.
    “Hello,” I said. “And who are you?”
    The older one, giggling behind her hand, said, “Don’t you know, Grandma? I’m Sarah.”
    The younger girl stayed silent, staring at me with frank curiosity.
    “That’s Elizabeth. She’s afraid of you,” said Sarah.
    I bent and looked into Elizabeth’s eyes. They were brown, and her hair was shining blond, like Rosie’s. “No need to be afraid of me, my dear. I’m just a harmless old woman.”
    Elizabeth frowned. “Are you crazy?” she asked.
    Sarah giggled behind her hand again, and Eleanor breathed loudly through her nose as if this impertinence was simply overwhelming.
    I smiled. I liked Elizabeth. Liked her very much. “They say I am,” I said, “and it may very well be true.”
    A tiny smile crossed her face. She stretched on her tiptoes and kissed my cheek, hardly more than the touch of a warm breeze, then turned and ran away. Sarah followed her, and I watched them go, my heart dancing and shivering. I had loved no one in a very long time. I missed it, but dreaded it, too. For I had loved Delia and Rosie, and they were both dead.
    The first thing I saw when I entered the house was Chelichev’s
Cat in Glass
, glaring evilly from a place of obvious honor on a low pedestal near the sofa. My stomach felt suddenly shrunken.
    “Where did you get that?” I said.
    Eleanor looked irritated again. “From Daddy, of course.”
    “Stephen promised me he would sell it!”
    “Well, I guess he didn’t, did he?”
    Anger heightened my pulse. “Where is he? I want to speak to him immediately.”
    “Mother, don’t be absurd. He’s been dead for ten years.”
    I lowered myself into a chair. I was shaking by then, and I fancied I saw a half smile on the glass cat’s cold jowls.
    “Get me out of here,” I said. A great weight crushed my lungs. I could barely breathe.
    With a look, I must say, of genuine worry, Eleanor escorted me onto the porch and brought me a tumbler of ice water. “Better?” she asked.
    I breathed deeply. “A little. Eleanor, don’t you realize that monstrosity killed your sister, and mine as well?”
    “That simply isn’t true.”
    “But it is, it is! I’m telling you now, get rid of it if you care for the lives of your children.”
    Eleanor went pale, whether from rage or fear I could not tell. “It isn’t yours. You’re legally incompetent, and I’ll thank you to stay out of my affairs as much as possible till you have a place of your own. I’ll move you to an apartment as soon as I can find one.”
    “An apartment? But I can’t …”
    “Yes you can. You’re as well as you’re ever going to be, Mother. You only liked that hospital because it was easy. Well it costs a lot of money to keep you there, and we can’t afford it anymore. You’re just going to have to straighten up and start behaving like a human being again.”
    By then I was very close to tears, and very confused as well. Only one thing was clear to me, and that was the true nature of the glass cat. I said, in as steady a voice as I couldmuster, “Listen to me. That cat was made out of madness. It’s evil. If you have a single ounce of brains, you’ll put it up for auction this very afternoon.”
    “So I can get enough money to send you back