Page 111 of Saving Graces
The next morning she took it to a vet, where it was announced the kitten was a boy, his tail was indeed broken, and he was a chimera.
“A what?”
“He would have started out as two embryos, but essentially absorbed both DNA,” the vet explained.
“He ate his twin?” Rosalie stared with faint horror at the small being currently climbing the vet’s arm like a tree.
The vet laughed as she tried to disentangle its claws from her scrubs.
“I mean, kind of. It explains why his eyes are different colors and his coat is too.” She then went on to point out the extra toes on his front feet - “he’s also a polydactyl!” - and the intensity of his fluff. “He’s a maine coon for sure, so he’s going to be a giant. Absolutely massive by the looks of those wooly feet.”
“Right,” said Rosalie. “Well, you’ll find someone who’ll adopt him, won’t you?”
The vet frowned. “Unfortunately, it’s kitten season. The shelters are overflowing right now. And he’s, well, he’s not exactly… um…” She looked awkward, her words petering out. “He’s not really an instant winner, to look at, is he?”
Rosalie folded her arms across her chest. “He’s fine! He’s got great…” she squinted at him, “…whiskers.”
The two of them studied the kitten. His whiskers were out of control, at least four times the length required. They also seemed to be slightly tangled up in the intense amount of ear hair he had.
“Oh fuck,” she said after a minute. “I’m taking him home, aren’t I?”
The vet gave him pain relief for his tail, then vaccinated, microchipped, and flea-treated him so fast Rosalie barely knew what was happening, before she was handing over her credit card and standing outside the clinic doors holding a new cat carrier, blinking in the sunlight.
“Well,” she announced to Lemonade with a sigh, as they arrived back home. “Home sweet home, I guess.”
To her intense shock, she liked having the little creature around. The vet was right though, he didn’t stay small for long. Within months she had a large cat and then a small lion prowling around her home, terrifying her by waking her up in the night trying to sleep on her head, or practically crushing her legs when he curled up in her lap. She enjoyed coming home and having someone running to greet her. He was a steady presence in his own way: relaxed, lazy and - at least when compared with another human - he had very few demands of her.
“I guess this was always going to be my fate eventually.” She scratched his chin as they sat on the couch together. “I’m thirty-six and single. I am a lesbian,” she mused, “though as it turns out, entirely incapable of falling in love and being loved back by another human. So it looks like it’s about time I embraced my inner cat lady and died alone. At least this way if I trip and fall in my own home, you’ll get to nibble on my carcass, right?”
Lemonade squinted his odd-colored eyes and straight up smiled. Rosalie knew it, as deeply as she’d ever known anything in her life. Her fate was sealed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The morning was clear and cool as Kinsey pulled open the windows. She leaned out into the sea breeze, the ocean as blue and calm as a lake. Then she turned back to the real view. Morning light spilled over Rosalie, her lovely hair a little wild, nothing but a sheet covering her body as she sipped a steaming coffee. Kinsey realized for the first time what the feeling that kept welling up inside her was.
“What’s that smile?” Rosalie looked up and caught her gaze.
“None of your business,” Kinsey said, slipping back between the sheets and picking up her own coffee to sip. Rosalie narrowed her eyes, but stroked her hand over her thigh under the sheets. “When do you have to go back?”
Rosalie hesitated.
“I mean,” she said, then she bit her lip. Kinsey raised her eyebrows. Rosalie looked skyward. “I have work on Monday,” she started again. Kinsey waited.
“It’s Saturday morning,” Kinsey pointed out. “Do you have a flight to catch?”
“I kind of don’t,” Rosalie admitted. “I got as far as booking a flight to see you, but I didn’t know how this was going to go. So I just… didn’t plan.”
“Are you telling me I get to keep you for a whole day and another night?” Kinsey had forgotten how to play it cool, her entire body turning to look at her.
Rosalie tucked her hair back, a small smile on her lips at Kinsey’s barely held in excitement.
“I guess I am.”
“We’re headed up to Providence later this afternoon-”
“I know,” Rosalie interrupted, “I stalked your tour dates to figure out how to find you.”
Kinsey’s grin spilled out unstoppably.
