Page 48 of Saint Céline
Mr. Montgomery rubbed his forehead. “We can rehome it.”
“No.” The word came sharp enough to surprise everyone. Katherine sat straighter, one hand tightening protectively around the kitten. “She stays.”
Mrs. Montgomery hesitated. Katherine rarely fought them directly. She resisted quietly most of the time, through silence and withdrawal and pretending not to care. Open stubbornness meant she really cared about something. My mother noticed it too.
“She may adjust over time,” my mother said carefully. “Especially if the cat isn’t sleeping directly on her bed.”
“She’s not sleeping anywhere else,” Katherine said immediately.
Mrs. Montgomery sighed. And somehow, without anyone formally deciding it, Miss Astoria became my responsibility partially after that.
At first, it was small things. Brushing her hair because Katherine sneezed less afterwards. Keeping lint rollers in Katherine’s room. Opening the windows before Mrs. Montgomery noticed fur on the curtains. Then bigger things. Feeding her when Katherine forgot. Cleaning the litter box because the smell made Katherine nauseous. Taking Miss Astoria to the vet once with my mother because Mr. Montgomery had meetings and Mrs. Montgomery was in Boston for a charity event.
I did not mind. I loved the cat almost immediately. Miss Astoria followed me through the house whenever I visited. She slept beside me during study sessions, curled against my thigh while Katherine explained biology concepts I barely understood. At some point, she stopped waiting outside Katherine’s bedroom door and started waiting outside mine instead. Katherine pretended this offended her deeply.
“You stole my cat.”
“She’s sitting on your lap right now.”
“She’s emotionally cheating on me.”
Miss Astoria yawned.
“You’re so dramatic,” I told her.
“You made her prefer you.”
“I don’t think cats work like that.”
Katherine narrowed her eyes. “Everything prefers you.”
The words landed strangely. Not quite a compliment. Not entirely a joke either. I looked up from the worksheet she had assigned me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged too quickly. “Nothing.”
Then she pushed my textbook toward me. “You’re behind again.”
That was how our life worked by then. Katherine corrected my homework while Miss Astoria slept beside me. I fixed Katherine’s eyeliner before parties while she rewrote my chemistry notes. I helped her speak to people at school. She helped me survive Bellamont Academy. Sometimes I forgot which parts were friendship and which parts were labour because they had tangled together too tightly to separate cleanly.
* * *
The first time I truly saw the line again was junior year.
I came to Katherine’s room after school still wearing myBellamont blazer, arms full of shopping bags from town, because Mrs. Montgomery had asked if I could pick up a few things before dinner. The smell hit me before I opened the door fully.
Ammonia. Sharp and sour and awful. I stopped short.
“Jesus Christ.”
Katherine sat cross-legged on the floor beside her bed with an expression of pure irritation while Miss Astoria hid beneath the desk.
“What happened?” I asked.
“That stupid cat peed on my bed.”
Miss Astoria let out a tiny, offended noise from under the desk. I set the shopping bags down slowly. The duvet was soaked. One of Katherine’s silk pillowcases had been thrown across the room.
“When was the last time the litter box got cleaned?” I asked carefully.
