Suze nods. “I’ll play.”
“Deal me in,” Ben says.
I shuffle the cards, feeling something akin to peace. It’s a single moment, but it’s real—the camaraderie of my friends, Jasmine upstairs, tea and snacks at our elbows. I feel Amma there, too, approving. As she would have, I say, “Five-card stud, nothing wild.”
Suze’s eyes twinkle. “Not even tens?” It was always the card she wanted to be the wild card, one of the few things that irked Amma, who liked her poker straight up.
“Not even tens,” I say, smiling, and deal.
When I get up in the morning, Suze is fast asleep in the bedroom that used to be hers, tucked under the eaves on the north end of the house. It’s always too cold, but she loved the refuge it offered. Amma took her in after Joel burned the church down, and she lived here for the final two and a half years of high school. I was deeply resentful at first—or rather, jealous. My family was falling apart, and I wanted to live with Amma, who wouldn’t let me. But she let Suze, saying she had nowhere else to go.
One of her posters, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, still adorns one wall, and she made the paisley quilt her final year of high school. Her braid peeks out from under the covers, and it pierces me. I was pretty evil for a while there. Not that Suze was exactly all sweetness and light. But probably no one would have been under the circumstances. Her father beat her nearly to death, she was sent away in disgrace, and her best friend—that would be me—kept a secret from her that I’ve still never shared.
It has come to me in the vacuum between us after the fight to wonder if my keeping this secret is partly what created so much distance between us.
A piercing sense of longing fills me. I miss our closeness. For all that is wrong between us, she is still like the other half of me, the missing half I found one day on a beach when we were twelve.
Yul Brynner sprawls over her legs. He meows at me. “I bet you’re hungry,” I say. “Come on.”
He leaps down easily and follows me out. We trip downstairs, where Jasmine is eating oatmeal with berries while watching her iPad with headphones. She sees the cat and her mouth drops open. “Where did he come from?” She yanks off the earphones and drops to the floor, petting Yul Brynner. “Oh my gosh, he’s so soft!” He lifts his head and she bends to kiss him, giggling when he licks her nose. “What’s his name?”
“Yul Brynner.” At the weird look she gives me, I say, “It’s a long story. He was an actor who was in a very famous movie Suze and I loved. The King and I.”
“Oh. Can I feed him?”
“Yes. She brought some food. It’s in the cans over there. You can use a saucer.” When Maui trots into the room, Yul Brynner holds his ground. Maui bends to sniff him, and they touch noses.
“How cute!” Jasmine cries. “Did Auntie Suze spend the night?”
“She did.” I scrape food into the dish Suze left out and shoo Maui away so Yul Brynner can eat. Such an awkwardly long name, but she never just calls him Yul, so I won’t, either. “Eat your breakfast, sweetheart. Let him eat.”
She gets back up. “I wish I could have a cat.”
I nod, washing my hands. “Maybe when you come back to the States.”
“Why can’t I have one in England? Maybe that would make me feel better.”
“Maybe.” I half smile—she’s not above a little emotional manipulation. “Better to wait and see.”
Her face falls, and this time it’s not manipulation but genuine sadness. It creeps over her face like dusk. “I don’t want to go so far away.”
“I know, baby. But it’s going to be an amazing adventure.” To redirect, I add, “Suze always, always, always wanted a cat and her dad would never let her have one. My grandmother let her keep one here.”
“Really? What kind of cat?”
“It was a tuxedo.”
She wrinkles her nose. “What’s that?”
“Black and white. A white ruff. Peter.” I remember him as a kitten, one of a litter born at the hippie house, a place we all hung out the summer before Suze was sent away—a party house, really, but not in a bad way. Not like a party house would be now. The kittens lived in the barn, and we all adored them. Peter was the imp of the group, always getting into predicaments and causing trouble. Suze loved him from the very first time she saw him. He had a half mustache and a spot of white right on his forehead, like a horse, and socks on all four feet. Suze begged her father for weeks to keep that kitten, and finally she went to Beryl, who kept books and the diary and clothes for Suze.