The Bean Cat (short story, unfinished)

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago as part of a grad school application. I sat down three days before the app was due and wrote the first page, then spent about 10 hours the next day finishing it up. It's still pretty solidly a draft, but I think there's some good stuff in there, and I'll likely finish it someday.

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The Bean Cat

            Everything comes from somewhere. The cat came from a bean field.

            At least, that’s what Jen told everyone when they were crowded around her, staring at the tiny ball of fur and curiosity in her arms. “He came out of the bean field,” she said. “I was just walking home from the factory, and I took the shortcut through Providence Park, you know how that butts right up on the fields out by the McCoy place.”

            Everyone nodded and mm’d. The McCoy place, though not the only farm in the area by a long shot, was the nearest to town of all of them. The farm shared one side with Providence Park. Late in the summer when the flies didn’t even want to buzz because of the heat it was hard to distinguish the un-kept greenery of the park from the farm’s tenacious soybean crop. The weeds weren’t too particular about whose land they grew on, after all.

            “Did he have a momma?” piped up one of the younger listeners, androgynous in gangly limbs and dusty overalls. The cat batted at the small hand.

            Jen shook her head. “None that I could find, and I hunted around for a long while,” she said, rocking the kitten gently back and forth. There were murmurs of “Oh, the poor angel,” and “Good thing you found him, missy,” from the audience.

            The young woman smiled at that, a wide toothy grin. “It was more like him finding me, actually. I heard him meowing and thought he might have been treed. While I was looking up in the branches he came runnin’ over from the bean field and climbed up m’ pant leg.”

            Shifting the cat to one arm, she used the other to gesture up her leg to her shoulder. “Perched himself up there, friendly as anything, and talked my ear off the whole time I was looking for his ma.”

            Just as Jen was saying this, the small crowd parted to allow Jen’s own mother access. Ma Riley was middle-aged, with long graying hair tucked up into an efficient bun. She wore work clothes, overalls and a smock, which she was now using to dry her hands. Sharp blue eyes in a care-lined, ruddy face stared first at Jen, then the kitten she held. No one said anything for a long breath. Then Ma Riley spoke.

            “Have you checked him for fleas?”
            Jen nodded, a little nervously. “Yes’m. He looks clean, and healthy, if a little on the skinny side.”

            The older woman nodded, one eyebrow quirked in calculation. Jen held her breath. Everyone else drew back just a hair. The cat, feeling the change in the air, craned his neck to see what the fuss was about. Coffee-brown eyes met sharp blue ones.

            The cat sneezed.  

            It was nearly impossible not to smile at that, and the woman didn’t fight it. She cracked a grin just as toothy as Jen’s, and reached out to bop the cat gently on the nose.

            “Well, just give him a bath before you bring him in the house. He can sleep with you and the boys for a night or two until he gets the feel of the place.”

            Judgment delivered, she turned and left the group. Everyone else crowded close again, and folk started talking over one another, offering all manner of cat-rearing advice.

            Jen fielded the suggestions as best she could, assuring everyone that she’d remember what they said. After a minute, she excused herself and broke away from the crowd. Most of the adults stayed put and continued their debate about the best things to feed small animals, but the children followed Jen as she headed toward home.

~

            Ma Riley’s Boardinghouse was a three-story building just off Main Street. The first floor contained the dining hall, the kitchen, and the Riley family residence; the second and third floors were rooms to let. The house kept a few goats and some chickens in pens in the back, and there was a water trough on the side of the building for folk who came to town in buggies or on horseback.

            It was to this trough that Jen took the cat, with a handful of children solemnly trailing behind. They knew the horrors of Bathtime, and pitied their furry comrade. Without saying a word, the children spread out on either side of the trough, a little honor guard dressed in muddy denim.

            Jen hadn’t stopped talking to the cat since leaving the group of townsfolk. She kept up a steady stream of nonsense in a low, calm voice, stroking the cat’s head between his ears.

            In the same low voice, without looking away from the cat she said, “Jesse, would you please start pumping some water?”

            The child who’d spoken up earlier nodded and grabbed the pump handle. A few strong pumps, and a trickle of water came out of the spout, quickly turning into a stream. The cat heard the noise and looked around for the source. He stared intently at the falling water.    Jen took advantage of his focus. She grabbed the scruff of his neck and unceremoniously plopped him into the half-full trough, prompting an immediate yowl of betrayal. A few harried minutes, including an iffy episode where the cat nearly got stuck in the drain hole, and the ordeal was over.

            One of the children ran inside for a clean towel, which was wrapped carefully around the sopping wet animal. He had given up protesting and sat quietly on Jen’s lap, pathetic and shivering. He didn’t even complain when Jen started rubbing the towel all over him, leaving his fur sticking in odd directions.

            Once he was mostly dry, though, he seemed to feel better, and started squirming again. Jen took him inside the boarding house.

            “Whatcha gonna name ‘im, Jen?” Jesse asked, bringing the towel.

            “Oh yes!” “What’s his name?” the other kids chimed in. Jen headed over to the fireplace, wood stacked but not lit, and sat on the rug in front of it. The children plopped down with varying levels of coordination. The cat, having recovered from his trauma, explored the circle.

            Jen crossed her legs, stuck her elbows on her knees, and propped up her head on her hands to watch him. “I dunno,” she said. “What do you name cats?”

            The children considered this.

            “You could name him Mittens,” one offered.
            “Mittens is dumb,” another scoffed. “His paws ain’t even diff’rent colors. You should name him Rover. I had a dog named Rover,” he explained. “Dad shot it.”

            After that, the floor was open to all. Names were suggested and shot down in rapid-fire, and disputes were resolved with brief tussles. It was decided, eventually, that Rover, Spot, and all other canine-related names were unsuitable, but there might still be merit in Felix or Rex.

            The conversation woke old Missus Rose, a long-time tenant of the Boardinghouse, from her afternoon nap in the rocking chair by the window. Leaning forward, she peered at the cat.

            “She looks like a Darling or a Lovely to me,” she pronounced in her sweet, thin voice. “Such a sweetheart. Look at her beautiful paws.”

            “She’s a he, Missus Rose,” Jen replied gently. “And yes, he’s got big ol’ tomcat feet already.”

            Missus Rose nodded, not listening, and leaned back in her chair. “That’s nice, dear. Such a pretty little kitty. She’s lovely.”

            The thin, sweet voice trailed off into snores.

            Mrs. Feathers, the boardinghouse cook, heard the children snickering and came over from setting plates on the table to flick a towel at them.

            “Don’t make fun of Missus Rose, even if she is asleep,” she admonished. “She was a real Lady once, in the big city. You’ll show some respect.”

            The big door boomed open and a crowd of boarders filed in – men from the factory, mostly, who didn’t have families or houses of their own – shepherded in by Ma Riley. Mrs. Feathers quickly went back to laying the table.

            Ma Riley saw the circle of children by the fireplace.

            “You’d all better be getting back to your own homes, now,” she called over the chatty factory workers. “And Jen, get cleaned up and come have your supper.”

            The children groaned but got up, each petting the cat once more before darting out the door. Jen hurried toward the kitchen, dodging her brother Liam as he came out carrying a platter of chicken. She went through the kitchen into the family’s rooms and deposited the cat on her bed while she washed up her face and arms in a basin.

            “You want to stay in here a bit?” she asked him, drying her face. “It’s going to be awful loud in there.”

            But the cat had smelled the chicken, and butted his head against the bedroom door.

            Jen smiled. “All right, then, up you go.”

            She scooped him up and deposited him on her shoulder, and went in to dinner.

~

            It was loud, in the dining room. There were thirty-some people sitting down to eat on long wooden benches around the huge, heavy wooden table. Simple tin cutlery clinked on no-nonsense ceramic plates and folk talked over each others’ heads, discussing current events. The cat was immediately famous among the boarders, daintily stepping his way between the platters to be petted and given scraps. The weather was also a popular topic – it had been a relatively dry summer, and some of the men were speculating that they might be in for a flooding fall to make up for it.

            Most people, though, were craning their heads to get a look at the town’s new lawyer, who had arrived that morning. The young Mr. Barclay was sitting at one end of the long table, explaining to the men across from him what the big city’s university was like. He’d studied there before law school, he said, and a finer education you couldn’t ask for in the county. He used a lot of words to say so. The men were polite to him, but anyone who looked would see that the country-bred factory workers were getting their hackles up.

            “He’s a smart one, but his suit’s a little too clean,” Jen muttered quietly from the other end of the table, turning away from the growing debate and focusing on her meal. “He doesn’t look like he belongs in the country.”

            One of the factory workers across from her snorted. He was an older man, bald but for a little crown of white hairs and a scraggly grey beard. His name was Brag, and he had been Jen’s supervisor at the factory until a bad fall had confined him to desk jobs. Now he walked slowly, and with a heavy limp. But his eyes twinkled, and the laugh lines around his face were deep.

            “If he prattles on much longer, the boys’ll toss him out in the street,” he rumbled, winking at Jen. “That oughta dirty him up enough.”

            Those in earshot laughed at this, interrupting the argument about country versus city just as it had started to get heated. The tension in the room settled back down. Conversations faded away, one after another, as people realized how full and how tired they were. Some men excused themselves to bed. Others took their pipes out to the porch.

            Jen’s brother Liam came back out of the kitchen with the other two Riley boys, Pat and Charlie, in tow. The two youngest carefully stacked dishes on trays, shyly avoiding eye contact with the adults. Liam poured another round of coffee for those who wanted it, then went and lit the fire.

            The cat didn’t care for the noise the stacked plates made, and appeared back in Jen’s lap. She told Brag how the little animal had found her on her way home from work, and he nodded.

            “Sounds like he was a drop-off, if he’s that friendly with people,” Brag said, fishing a penknife and a hunk of wood out of his overalls. He set to whittling a toothpick.

            Jen frowned. “I’ve never heard of anyone not wanting a cat around,” she said, puzzled. “They’re damn useful creatures. Especially now fall’s coming, and the mice’ll be looking for warm indoor places.”

            Brag shrugged, eyes on his work. “Some folk just don’t know what they’re doing with animals, I suppose.”

            They sat without saying anything for a little while, the old man making a little pile of sawdust on the table, the young woman rubbing the cat’s belly. It was full and round from all the scraps he’d begged at dinner, and he was purring up a storm.

            Mrs. Flowers broke the quiet by coming over with two plates of cobbler. She set them down on the table and asked, “Have you found a name for him yet, Miss Jenny?”
            Brag snorted.

            Jen kicked him lightly under the table. “Not yet, ma’am. Haven’t thought of the right one.”

            The cook nodded and gazed off into the middle distance. She considered herself a philosophical woman, prone to soliloquies and deep thoughts when she wasn’t busy in the kitchen. She had a look about her now that said there was such a thought coming.

            Sure enough, “It was Providence Park that gave him to you, Miss Jenny. Seems to me that by rights his name ought to be Providence.”

            Satisfied with her logic, she beamed at the kitten, and turned to the rest of the room before Jen could stop her.

            “God bless Providence the cat!” she proclaimed, hands raised in benediction. The people around the fireplace laughed and applauded, and the cook swept grandly out of the room.

            Jen sighed in aggravation and slumped forward. Her forehead thunked on the table, surprising the cat, who hopped up to sniff at the closest ear. Jen didn’t move, but she knew that Brag’s expression was a picture of controlled mirth.

            “’Providence the cat,’” she mumbled into the table. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

            “You never know,” Brag said, jamming his toothpick between his teeth and waggling his eyebrows at her. “He might grow into it.”

            She raised her head a few inches to scowl at him, then straightened all the way up. The cat had just started to step over her neck, wanting to investigate her other ear, so the effect of straightening up was that Jen was wearing a cat-shaped scarf.

            She stood, and stepped away from the bench.

            “You’re a horrible old man,” she told Brag with a smile.

            He grinned and started on another toothpick.

~

            The cat slept on Jen’s bed, which was one of three in the room. Liam, being nearly sixteen, had his own bed, while Pat and Charlie shared a bunk above it. Charlie had complained about the arrangement when he turned twelve the previous month, but Ma Riley had said that until he was done with school, he could handle sharing a bed with his little brother. Pat, being nine, was happy to be included in anything of Charlie’s.

            Ma Riley tucked everyone in before taking the candle with her to bed. As she closed the connecting door, she looked back. Providence was curled around the top of Jen’s head, stripy black and brown fur blending into dusty brown hair. Both were sound asleep.

~

            The next morning, Jen woke to find Providence draped over her feet, and two dead mice on the quilt next to him. She finished cleaning up the mess just as her brothers woke up, and had to hurry through breakfast to leave for work on time.

            Liam, Mrs. Flowers’ part-time kitchen assistant, handed Jen her lunch and winked at the cat, once more draped over Jen's shoulder. She thanked her brother and raced out the door.

            “You sure he’s a cat and not a parrot?” he called after her.
            Providence yowled.

~

            The factory was only across town, but it was still a long walk, and everyone agreed company made it pass faster. Jen caught up with the other workers from the boardinghouse, who shouted greetings and laughed at her feline companion.

            “You’re not bringing that little thing to work, now, are you Jen?” skinny George Gregson sniggered. Jen bared her teeth at him, not quite a smile.

            “’That little thing’ brought down two mice last night without waking me up,” she retorted. “He can fend for himself.”

            “He’s not the only one,” Gregson said, holding up his hands in surrender. He winked at her to show no hard feelings. This time she smiled.

            They passed the walk with the same conversations as the night before. Discussing the weather, poking fun at the city-boy lawyer with all the sharp edges, reminiscing about the chicken and cobbler and speculating what tonight’s meal might be.

            Before too long, they’d caught up with Brag, who always left much earlier because of his leg. Every day, Jen tried to convince him to borrow her mother’s cart. Every day, he laughed her off and said the only way he’d ever arrive at the factory was under his own power, and the only way he’d ever leave it for good was in a pine box. The rest of the workers pulled ahead, but Jen slowed her pace to walk with Brag. She knew she wouldn’t be late. Brag always got everywhere exactly on time.

~

            Work was full of noise and action. Jen and the other girls who worked on the factory floor, as well as the slimmer men, ran around between and inside the machines making sure everything stayed oiled and free from debris. They pushed carts of coal to the generator room, and raced each other to bring the empty ones back. They brought water around to the workers at regular intervals, and helped stack the heavy crates that would soon hold the gears and cogs the factory produced, to send to other factories to make other machines.

            Providence found his own use, as well. He skulked around the corners of the room, avoiding the booted feet of the workers, and found every single mouse hole in the building. When the bossman found out that someone had brought a cat to his factory, he puffed up like a steam engine ready to burst, but when he saw the respectable number of vermin carcasses Providence had collected, he abruptly deflated. Jen caught him later cooing at the cat and feeding him bits of sandwich.

            As usual, Jen and the odd-job crew finished their work before the main workers did. She hadn’t seen Providence in a little while, but as she signed out, a little ball of black and brown detached itself from underneath a machine and climbed its way up to her shoulder.

            The other girls oohed and ahhed over the “handsome little man” most of the way home. George Gregson went into a pout at being neglected, and announced he would waste away to nothing while all the attention went to the cat. Providence just purred.

~

            The next two months passed in much the same fashion. Conversation still revolved mainly around the weather, though now it was speculation for the winter. It had indeed proved to be a rainy, wet fall so far, but by mid-October there had only been two major storms, and the seasonal headcold had made its rounds with no lasting damage.

            Providence continued to make himself useful, and had turned from three fuzzy pounds of paws and baby fat into a lean six-pound hunter. He brought down a steady stream of mice and voles at the factory, and had expanded his territory at home to include the Boardinghouse’s backyard and the general store next door. Joe Lawrence, who ran the store, said he was only too happy to have the cat around, since his old mouser Daisy was getting long in the tooth. Daisy also seemed all right with the arrangement, and spent her days dozing in sunbeams.

            The lawyer, too, had mellowed out a little, though his suit was still sharp and clean. Now he hung his jacket from a hook by the door when he sat down to dinner at the boardinghouse, and listened to the men talk about baseball and local politics more than he declaimed about city life. He had taken a particular shine to Providence, and after spending a few September evenings playing with the cat had got up the nerve to mention that he rather liked Ms. Jennifer Riley, too.

            She ignored him and continued brushing dust out of Providence’s fur.

~

            Liam’s birthday was on Halloween. Mrs. Flowers locked him out of the kitchen for a full day before it, to make the cake. He sulked around in the main room instead. When his mother asked what was wrong, Liam made the mistake of complaining that he had nothing to do.

            “Well here,” she said, handing him a mop and a bucket. “I was going to wash the floor in here since the boys have tramped mud all over it, but if you’re feeling rambunctious you may as well do it, and I’ll see to the accounts.”

            She smiled brightly at her son and walked away. Liam stood holding the mop, his mouth hanging open, waiting for some excuse to come out. A quiet trill came from somewhere around his feet. He looked down to see Providence rubbing up against his leg.

            “It’s all right for you,” Liam groused. “You don’t have a mother.”

            Providence balanced his front paws on the bucket to investigate the sudsy water.

~

            The cake was marvelous: three huge layers of chocolate-swirled yellow cake, with a delicate orange frosting and little candy jack-o-lanterns. Liam’s grin gave the jack-o-lanterns a run for their money, and the whole boardinghouse wished him many sincere happy returns.

            After dinner and dessert had been eaten to their fullest extent, Jen and Ma Riley helped Mrs. Flowers clean up the kitchen.

            “You go on home, Edna,” Ma Riley said as they were finishing the last of the dishes. “Jen and I will get everything put away.”

            Mrs. Flowers straightened up carefully, stretching her back.

            “If you’re sure, Mary,” she said, glancing hopefully toward the door.

            Ma Riley nodded. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

            Mrs. Flowers picked up her coat and said good night to Jen, and closed the kitchen door behind her.

            Jen looked at her mother.

            “What’s the matter, Ma?”

            “Oh nothing, Jenny, I just thought we might talk.”
            Jen frowned. “Ma, you know I hate when you call me that,” she started to say, but her mother interrupted.

            “You know that your twenty-first birthday is coming up soon, and I just wanted to know if you’d been thinking at all about what you’ll do afterward.”

            Jen groaned.

            “Ma, we talked about this.” She turned back to the pile of clean dishes and picked up a drying towel. “You said I could work at the factory as long as I wanted to.”

            Ma Riley sniffed. “I said you could try working at the factory as a part-time job for little while, just to see if you really truly liked it,” she corrected. “And that was almost five years ago. I thought by now you’d have figured out what you wanted out of life.”

            The pile of dry dishes grew higher as Jen worked, frustration lending her efficiency.

            “I have figured it out. I want to work at the factory, and be a supervisor someday, and have a pension, like Brag.” Pick up, dry, stack. Pick up, dry, stack.

            “Like Brag!” the incredulity in her mother’s voice was evident. “That crochety old man is lame because of that factory job of his. I don’t want you to get hurt like that.” Mimicking her daughter, she attacked the pile of dirty dishes with gusto.

            Jen laughed, humorlessly. “Well that’s just great, Ma, you’ve found something we agree on. I don’t want to get hurt either. And maybe I won’t, and maybe I will.” Pick up, dry, stack. “Not every job can be as safe as running a boardinghouse.”

            She felt her mother pause, then resume washing. “And who brought up running a boardinghouse?”

            Jen turned and stared. Her mother studiously didn’t look up from the dishes.

            “That’s it, isn’t it? You want me to stay here and work at the boardinghouse.” Jen was furious. “Well why don’t you just come right out and say it! You don’t think I should work at the factory, you think I should work for you!”
            Ma Riley threw the dishrag down. “Now don’t you put words into my mouth, Jennifer Eileen Riley! Of course I want you to run the boardinghouse someday, but on your own two feet, not working for me!”

            She saw the expression on her daughter’s face and sighed.

            “Would that really be so bad? I could show you how to do the books, how to manage the finances; you already know how to check people in and out and collect the rent–”
            “So does Liam! Only difference is, he actually cares about it!”

            “Liam is sixteen, he’s still in school, he doesn’t know what he wants yet . . .”

            “Have you bothered to asked him? I knew what I wanted at sixteen.”

            “No, you knew what you thought you wanted!”
            “Well it turns out I was right!”

            Silence fell. The two women stood frozen, nearly eye-to-eye. Jen might have been an inch or two taller, but both had fists planted on hips and chins shoved out in front of them like twin battering rams.

            A burst of laughter from the front room trickled through the door. Ma Riley looked away first, and turned to the pile of dirty dishes. Part of Jen realized that there was much more gray in that practical bun than there used to be, and more lines on that face.

            “I’m sorry, Jen,” Ma Riley said after a minute. She shook her head and went back to washing dishes. Jen stayed quiet, but picked up the drying towel.

            They finished the dishes and wiped down the tables without saying anything more. As Jen turned to leave, Ma Riley put a hand on her shoulder.

            “I suppose if I waited five years to try and badger you into something you didn’t want, I can wait a few more years for your brother to want it for himself.”

            Jen looked at her feet, not trusting her voice. She turned quickly and buried her face in her mother’s hug.

~

            November came and went, and nothing more was said about Jen learning to run the boardinghouse. Instead, Ma Riley would tell Liam to finish his schoolwork as soon as he could when he got home, so that he could watch her working on some aspect of the business or other. Jen spent as much of her time at the factory as possible near the floor managers, watching how they moved the game pieces that were the workers. She and Brag talked shop over dinner, and he gave her some hints about the job he’d gathered from decades as a supervisor.

            Young Mr. Barclay hadn’t pushed his luck any farther with Jen, but somehow without her realizing it he had become a fixture of her life and her family’s. He helped the boys with their homework – even Charlie, who was almost a teenager, and very difficult to work with. He held yarn for Ma Riley when she wound it into skeins, ready to knit into winter sweaters. He spent most of the rest of his free time playing with Providence, or talking to Jen, or accompanying her on errands around town. It seemed only natural to invite him into the back rooms for the private Riley Thanksgiving dinner, and when he was invited to say the grace, he grinned as wide as one of the family.

~

            The spring continued where the fall left off – wet – with ice melts and rainstorms nearly every week. Soon it was impossible to truly dry off, and the boardinghouse’s fireplace was roaring constantly to try and dry everyone’s socks. Providence enjoyed this, because the clothing racks were just sturdy enough to hold him, and a few boarders were scared witless by a playful claw swiping at them from inside a jungle of damp socks.

            The first dry Sunday in April, every single person in town was outside. It had been weeks of damp and wet, and most folk were a little stir crazy. The bosses at the factory were in constant bad temper, because all the humidity was playing tricks with the machines; the boarders were sick of each other’s faces and their own; all the town’s children were tired of not being allowed to play outside. Quite a few impromptu picnics were arranged on that sunny day, and by one o’clock in the afternoon the whole of Providence Park was covered in bright blankets, food and drink, and people who were happy just to see the sun.

            Mr. Barclay – Adam, everyone called him now – and Jen sat on a gingham blanket spread over a tree stump near the edge of the park. They had a small basket of lunch, which turned out to be even smaller once they opened it and realized Providence had come along for the ride. Adam chased the thieving cat up a tree, waving his hat and cursing. Jen laughed so hard she fell off the stump.

~

            The storm came on very suddenly. Nobody in the park had time to get under much cover but the trees, and many folks had to rush home through the pouring rain to bring in laundry or close windows.

            The first lightning flashed. Providence came tearing out of the tree like a rocket, and leapt neatly into the picnic basket Jen was holding for him. Adam made to run for town, but Jen grabbed his hand and pulled him up short.

            “The shortcut!” she yelled over the thunder, latching the basket closed so Providence wouldn’t be bounced out. “It’s this way!”

            They ran in tandem through the park, past the McCoy bean field, and the mile back across town, soaked to the bone and laughing.

            Jen shook wet hair out of her eyes as they hurried up the boardinghouse steps. Liam was standing there in the doorway. As his sister reached the porch he burst into tears.

            Jen froze, and felt Adam do the same behind her. Shaking it off, she quickly put down the basket and took her brother’s hand.

            “Liam, what’s wrong?”

            The boy let out a sob. “It’s Ma,” he choked out.

            Jen flew inside.

~

            They all sat by the bedside, once Liam had calmed down enough to tell them what happened. Ma had taken advantage of the sunny day to air some laundry in the backyard, he said, until the storm hit. When she heard the rain, she ran to bring in the clothes, and in her hurry to carry them back inside, she had slipped on the wet wooden stairs, hit her head on the railing, and been knocked unconscious. Liam had found her almost immediately, and gone for the doctor while some of the men carried her carefully inside. She had come to for a few minutes, but slipped back into unconsciousness soon after.

            Dr. Miller put the rest of the equipment back into his black leather bag.

            “As far as I can tell, she’s not hurt but for the knock on her head,” he assured Liam and Jen. “But there’s no way to tell how bad that is unless she wakes up.”

            He closed the bag with a snap. Jen flinched.

            “You’ll need to monitor her temperature,” Dr. Miller said, looking at Jen. “Make sure there’s always someone in the room with her, and if she wakes up again don’t let her go back to sleep. Come for me quick if there are any changes at all. I’ll be back after I check on my other patients.”

            He smiled kindly at Liam, but the boy didn’t see him.

            “You did well, lad,” the doctor said. “We’ve done everything we can now. The rest is up to your mother.”

            He left. Jen realized she’d been holding Adam’s hand the whole time.

~

            It was a very long night. A few hours after Ma Riley’s fall, Jen realized that poor Providence was still in the picnic basket. She let him out, and he tore from the room to hide somewhere. Jen cleaned up the basket and went with Liam to feed the goats. Pat and Charlie came home from school while they were in the backyard, and Adam – smart, patient Adam – was the one to sit the boys down and explain what had happened. By the time Jen came back inside, her brothers were pale and frightened, but as calm as could be expected. She bent down to hug them, and they stayed like that for a while.
            Mrs. Flowers shooed Liam out of the kitchen after he broke his second plate, and dinner was a little delayed. The boarders knew what happened, and didn’t complain, but there was a lot of fidgeting going on. There was hardly any conversation over food, and instead of going to bed, nearly everyone hung around in the main room, smoking pipes or crouching by the fire. Everyone was waiting.

            Jen hadn’t left her mother’s side since feeding the goats, except to console Liam about being ejected from the kitchen. Adam brought two plates of dinner in, and they ate quietly, stealing glances at the still figure in the bed.

~

            On the second day, Providence came back. He had apparently forgiven Jen for trapping him inside the basket, and when he returned he brought a large dead rat with him. Jen stroked his chin absentmindedly and called him a good boy.

            The cat stared at her for a little while, as if waiting for a more appropriate reaction to his reappearance, but when none was forthcoming, he sneezed and moved on.

            Jen didn’t notice Providence jump up onto her mother’s bed. There was just suddenly a little black and brown face next to the limp hand she was holding. Providence sniffed Ma Riley’s hand, then walked over her chest to stand by her ear. He sniffed all over her face, and meowed a few times, puzzled. Usually this got him either petted or swatted – no consequences at all was something new.

            Jen didn’t even try to explain. What could he understand about it? she thought. He’s just a cat. Just a little stray cat.

            Providence didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. He curled up under Ma Riley’s ear and started to purr.

~

            Dr. Miller tried to keep from frightening the Rileys, but it wasn’t hard to see his expression get grimmer as the hours went by with no movement from the patient. The morning of the fourth day since the fall, Liam found him pacing outside the sickroom, muttering to himself.

            “I’m sorry, Liam, but there’s just no two ways about it,” the doctor said. “She may still make a full recovery, that’s true, but every day that goes by the possibility gets smaller and smaller.”

            Liam went back in to sit by the bed. It seemed to him that Providence was purring louder than he had the days before. The boy smiled briefly, and stroked the cat’s ears.

~

            Of course it had all happened the week that rent was due, Jen thought. We couldn’t have had a disaster strike on a week where we had time and energy to deal with it properly.

            She was knee-deep in record-keeping, and her eyes were starting to cross. She’d made all the notes of who had paid and who had not, and she’d tried to adjust the daily food budget accordingly, but she still had the taxes to figure out and the cleaning schedule and Mrs. Flowers’ pay and . . .

            Calloused hands covered hers and took the pencil from her. She looked up into Liam’s face, saw the look of fear and determination there, and breathed a sigh of utter relief.

            The two of them worked slowly but surely through the mountain of papers, and when Dr. Miller came in to tell them that their mother had stirred, he found them curled up next to the big desk chair, asleep.

~

            After that, things moved rather quickly. Ma Riley moved again later that day, and woke up just before dinner. She remembered falling, but nothing afterwards, except her shoulder feeling very warm. Providence looked smug, Jen thought, but then again he was a cat.

            They all took it in turns to stay up, making sure Ma Riley stayed awake as long as possible, and then waking her up every few hours to make sure nothing had changed.

            “I think I will feel better, doctor, if I can actually get some damned sleep tonight,” she growled at one point, and Dr. Miller beamed and said that was a very good sign.

            Adam finally convinced Jen to go get some sleep in her own bed at two in the morning, ten hours after her mother had woken up for good. Providence came with her, and slept just as deeply as she did. 

            The lives of the Rileys and their friends continue to be the main focus of the story, framed by Providence’s interactions with the world. Ma Riley recovers well from her accident, but she leaves more and more of the boardinghouse’s daily workings to Liam. Brag is let go from his job at the factory because he is viewed as an unnecessary expense. This is more crippling to him than his bum leg, and Jen worries about his mental state. Providence does something silly to cheer Brag up. Time passes more quickly, and the snapshots of town life get farther apart. The Rileys attend Missus Rose’s funeral; Adam executes her will and reveals that she left her small pension to Jen. Jen gives the money to Brag for his retirement. He dies of a heart attack in Providence Park, a few months after Missus Rose. Liam marries one of Jen’s coworkers, Caroline McCoy. Jen refuses Adam’s offer of marriage three times. He doesn’t mind. Eventually, she asks him, and he accepts. Providence lives to be twenty years old, give or take, and dies in his sleep in front of the fire, after an evening playing with Ma Riley’s five granddaughters. They bury him at the edge of the park, by the bean field.