Ruth’s house was on Pratt, near Ridge Avenue; it was a ten-minute walk from the Happy Cat Home. Jim would have called it a tear-down. The house was small and sat far back on a double lot. It was a single-story brick house, neat and plain, built in the sixties. Elm trees that had somehow eluded Dutch Elm Disease loomed over it. A sprinkler sat unused in the middle of a beige lawn.
I let myself in the front door.
The house itself was silent; a shimmer of cicada singing wafted through the open windows along with a warm breeze. I stood in the entryway and felt like an intruder. This was Ruth’s house. Ruth was a very private person. Standing there looking at her couch, her dinette set, her desk, I felt reluctant. But she gave it to you. She wanted you to be here. The thought came into my head as though someone was urging me to accept hospitality. Come in, come in. I set my purse on an armchair and began to wander slowly through the rooms.
Ruth must have furnished her house in the 1970s. All the furniture was teak, or covered in nubby off-white fabric. There were batik throw pillows and a beanbag chair. Her dishes were heavy stoneware, the carpeting was brown shag. Everything was somewhat worn.
I opened one of the desk drawers. It was empty. There were circles on the windowsills where plants had been. There was nothing in the kitchen cabinets but curling shelf-paper; nothing in the bathroom except an extra roll of toilet paper. In the bedroom closet I found two dresses that had belonged to Ruth. I leaned in and smelled them. They smelled like the Happy Cat Home.
But what about Ruth’s cats? There was no cat hair anywhere. No furniture had been clawed, there was no evidence of a litter box. And yet I remembered Ruth sharing stories of her cats’ antics. Perhaps whoever had taken the plants and rest of it had taken the cats, too. What were their names? I couldn’t remember.
I sat down on Ruth’s bed. The curtains moved in the breeze. I felt watched. “Thank you,” I said to Ruth, in case she could hear me. Then I felt silly. I got my purse, locked up the house and left.
I didn’t go back for a week. There was no reason to go. I worked my shifts at the shelter, but without Ruth it seemed dull and sad. I sat down one day to eat by myself in the shelter’s squalid lunch room, and suddenly it occurred to me that I could eat at Ruth’s house; it was so close. I gathered my food and left.
A bus was letting children off on the corner as I walked toward the house. They stared at me and whispered to each other as I let myself in.
The house was exactly the same. I sat at the dining room table and ate my yogurt and my tuna fish sandwich. When I was done I folded up the Ziplock bags and put them in my purse. It seemed wrong to leave any trash behind, even in the garbage can.
I stood in the kitchen looking out at the backyard. There was a small patio with a few old lawn chairs randomly placed, a planter full of dirt. Then I sat on Ruth’s bed. I took off my shoes and lay down on top of the bedspread, experimentally. The bed was very soft.
I didn’t mean to sleep. Even as I was falling asleep I thought, no, I must get back to work, but I knew I was sleeping already. It was the kind of sleep that is like dropping into a hole. Then I was half-awake, and had a curious sensation: there was a weight on the bed, leaning against me, and as I moved in my waking the weight went to the edge of the bed and fell off. It landed with a thud on the floor.
I sat up and looked at the floor, but there was nothing there. I looked at my watch. Only half an hour had gone by. I put on my shoes and went back to the shelter, confused but intrigued.
