Chapter Twenty-Nine

We finished our sandwiches and the pot of coffee before Mitch said goodnight. Polishing off all that coffee took some time, and a lot more communicating. A little bit of everything was discussed. In the end, questions went unanswered. Situations unresolved. Yet I hated to see Mitch go.

Maybe he didn't have the answer to why Alicia made the decision to elope. And so what if he couldn't be convinced Angel was not capable of cold-blooded murder. He was good company on a stormy spring night.

After countless cups of tea and then coffee, my system had enough caffeine floating around in it that it would take a week before I was ready for anything that resembled a sound sleep. So I gathered the newspapers that had piled up on a corner of the table and carried them into the living room. I dropped the newspapers on the middle couch cushion before settling on the end one. Right foot got propped on pillows on the coffee table before I was fully situated.

As I opened the most recent paper, Kitty decided it was time to curl up on my lap. This, of course, made it difficult to spread out the paper. So I didn't. I gave Kitty a gentle neck massage with one hand, while the other one worked the remote to the television set. After flipping through the channels, I settled on an old movie I'd seen before and liked, but for the life of me couldn't remember the title.

Kitty's tiny motor was cranked on high. But as she purred with contentment, restlessness grew within me. It was going on eleven. A late hour to begin making telephone calls.

I called Alicia's dorm first. Like earlier, no one picked up the dozen or so rings before I clicked off.

The thought of calling Allen wouldn't go away even after I told myself I wasn't going to call him. If he'd heard from Alicia, he would have called. That was what we agreed on. And we had nothing else to discuss.

But there was still this longing to call.

Fight it, I ordered myself. He cheated on you once. He'll do it again. It's over. The divorce papers say it's over. You can't go back. You must go forward.

"I'm trying, darn it."

The sound of my voice sent Kitty to the floor. My, "I'm sorry honey, come on back up," got me nowhere. I soon knew the apology and coaxing was just unacceptable. Kitty sulked off and out of the room without so much as a look back at me.

The thought did cross my mind that it wasn't the sound of my voice that peeved her, so much as it was what I was thinking. Because I do have these moments when I am convinced she understands what I'm thinking and feeling. So it just could be that she wanted to distract my thoughts away from Allen. Maybe she knew it wouldn't be long before I'd have myself seriously considering a reconciliation with him.

Her pouting stunt worked, because when I did start tapping out numbers on the telephone, they weren't Allen's.