Page 49 of Saint Céline
Katherine frowned at me like the question itself was strange.
“I don’t know.”
I walked to the bathroom connected to her room and immediately understood. The litter box was full. Not just slightly dirty. Miss Astoria had probably been miserable for hours.
“Katherine.”
“What?”
“She does this when the litter box isn’t cleaned.”
“Well, I didn’t know that.”
I stared at her. “You didn’t notice?”
“No?” She sounded defensive now, exhausted from school and annoyed at being judged. “How would I notice?”
I looked back toward the bathroom. Then at her.
“She’s your cat.”
Katherine’s expression changed immediately. Not cruel, but confused. As if I had misunderstood something obvious.
“No,” she said slowly. “It’s your job, not mine.”
The room went very quiet.
Behind us, Miss Astoria shifted nervously beneath the desk.
Katherine looked at my face and realized something was wrong.
“What?”
I said nothing. Because the terrible thing was that she had not meant to hurt me. To Katherine, this arrangement had become natural. I handled practical things. I remembered things. I cleaned things. I took care of things. Of course I did. I always had. She stood abruptly.
“Selena, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.”
“No, I just meant you’re better at this stuff than I am.”
This stuff. The litter box. The cleaning. The housekeeping. The invisible work that rich people did not care about. I walked into the bathroom before she could keep explaining. The smell was worse up close. I cleaned the litter box silently while Katherine hovered in the doorway behind me.
“I forgot,” she said after a minute.
I nodded once.
“I’ve had exams all week.”
Another nod. I went to the same school. I had exams too.
“Selena.”
I emptied the old litter into the trash and poured fresh litter into the box carefully, smoothing it flat the way Miss Astoria liked.
“You don’t have to be upset.”
That almost made me laugh. It wasn’t funny, but I suddenly understood something I should have realized years ago.
