Page 56 of Saint Céline
“Miss Astoria.” She tightened her grip even more. “You’re embarrassing both of us.”
Another offended noise escaped her, high and dramatic, and Mrs. Montgomery laughed quietly through her exhaustion.
“She gets that from Katherine.”
The sentence lingered between us softly, warm and painful all at once. I finally managed to settle the cat inside and latched the door, my fingers lingering on the bars for a moment while Miss Astoria pressed her face against them and stared at me with accusing blue eyes. Mrs. Montgomery touched my arm lightly as we made our way back down the stairs. “Thank you again, sweetheart,” she said, her voice gentle but threaded with that familiar relief, the kind that came from handing off the practical, messy parts of life to someone else.
When we reached the foyer, my mother was waiting near the staircase. Mom looked from me to the carrier immediately, and her entire face softened in that quiet, protective way she had always had.
“Oh,” she said, the single syllable carrying more understanding than most conversations ever did.
“She’s coming back with me,” I told her, and my mother nodded once like this was the most natural thing in the world.
“Good.”
Mrs. Montgomery touched my arm again, her fingers light and fleeting. The touch made guilt crawl coldly beneath my skin, but Miss Astoria let out another sharp, miserable cry from inside the carrier, and instinct overrode everything else immediately.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” I said.
“Yes. Please.” Mrs. Montgomery nodded too quickly.
The unspoken part hung invisibly in the foyer even after she smiled:Please keep coming back.
My mother walked me to the door while thunder rolled low across the cliffs outside. When we reached the porch, she adjusted my scarf automatically the way she always had before storms, her fingers quick and familiar.
“You look so tired,” she said quietly.
“I am tired.”
Her eyes searched my face carefully, not suspiciously but protectively.
“You don’t have to keep carrying everyone,” she said, the words hitting too close to the center of me.
I looked away first.
“Yes, I do.”
Mom’s expression tightened faintly because she knew exactly where I learned that. Neither of us said my father’s name. We rarely did. The rain had softened into mist by the time I reached the car, cold and fine against my cheeks.
Miss Astoria screamed the entire drive back to Bellamont, not meowing but screaming, a high, dramatic wail that filled the small space and made my head throb.
“You are genuinely the loudest animal alive,” I told her, gripping the wheel tighter as another cry pierced the air. “I literally rescued you.”
Scream.
“I fed you for years!”
Another scream.
By the time I pulled into the residence hall parking lot, I was one noise away from driving directly into the Atlantic just for the silence.
The dorm hallway was quiet when I stepped inside carrying the carrier, the overhead lights casting long shadows along the polished floors.
Then Sophia opened our suite door, and she froze. For one suspended second, she simply stared, her elegant features shifting from surprise to something warmer and more concerned.
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
Miss Astoria screamed from inside the carrier immediately.
