Ivy folded her arms across her chest. She was two inches taller than her mother.
"Ivy-" She could see her mother's eyes misting over. That was what she had been like for the past few months, emotional, pleading, insisting with tears. "Ivy, this is a new life, these are new ways for all of us. You told me yourself: For all the good things that are happening, this isn't a fairy-tale ending. We all have to try to make it work."
"Where is Ella now?" Ivy asked.
"In your bedroom. I closed the hall door, and the attic one too, so she wouldn't ruin anything else."
Ivy turned to Gregory. "Would you get Suzanne something to drink?"
"Of course," he said.
Then Ivy went up to her room. She sat for a long time, cradling Ella in her lap and gazing up at her water angel.
"What do I do now, angel?" she prayed. "What do I do now? Don't tell me to give up Ella! I can't give her up. I can't!"
In the end, she did. In the end, Ivy couldn't take the outdoors away from Ella. She couldn't leave her fierce little street cat vulnerable to anything that would take a swipe at her. Though it just about broke her heart, and Philip's too, she posted the adoption ad on the school bulletin board Thursday afternoon.
Thursday night she got a call. Philip was in her room doing his homework and picked up the phone. He somberly handed it over to her. "It's a man," he said. "He wants to adopt Ella."
Ivy frowned and took the receiver. "Hello?"
"Hi. How are you?" the caller asked.
"Fine," Ivy replied stiffly. Did it matter how she was? She immediately disliked this person-because he hoped to take away Ella.
"Good. Uh… did you find a home for your cat?"
"No," she said.
"I'd like to have her."
Ivy blinked hard. She didn't want Philip to see her cry. She should be glad and relieved that someone wanted a full-grown cat.
"Are you there?" asked the caller.
"Yes."
"I'd take good care of her, feed her and wash her."
"You don't wash cats."
"I'd learn what I have to do," he said. "I think she'd like it here. It's a comfortable place."
Ivy nodded silently.
"Hello?"
She turned her back on Philip. "Listen," she said into the phone. "Ella means a lot to me. If you don't mind, I'd like to see your home myself and talk to you in person."
"I don't mind at all!" the caller replied cheerfully. "Let me give you my address."
She copied it down. "And who is this?" she asked.
"Tristan."
"But you're a dog person," Gary said on Friday afternoon. "You've always been a dog person."
"I think my parents will enjoy a cat," Tristan replied. He moved quickly around the living room, clearing piles of stuff off the chairs: his mother's pediatrics journals, his father's hospital chapel schedules and stacks of photocopied prayers, his own swim schedules and old copies of Sports Illustrated, the previous night's tub of chicken. His parents would wonder why he had gone to all the trouble. Usually the three of them sat on the floor to read and eat.
Gary was watching him and frowning. "You think your parents will enjoy it? Does the cat have a disease? Does it have a religion? If your mother the doctor can't cure it and your father the minister can't pray for and counsel it-" "All homes need a pet," Tristan cut in.
"In homes where there's a cat, the people are the pets. I'm telling you, Tristan, cats have minds of their own. They're worse than girls. If you think Ivy can drive you crazy- Wait a minute… wait a minute…" Gary tapped his fingers on the table. "I remember an ad on the bulletin board."
"That's nice," Tristan said, and handed his friend his gym bag. "You said you had to get home early today."
Gary dropped his bag. He had figured out what was up. "And miss this? I was there the last time you made a fool of yourself; why shouldn't I stay for the fun this time?" He threw himself down on the rug in front of the fireplace.
"You're really enjoying my misery, aren't you?" Tristan murmured.
Gary rolled over on his back and put his hands behind his head. "Tristan, me and the guys have been watching you get all the girls for the last three years-no, for the last seven; you were hot even in fifth grade. Darn right I'm enjoying it!"
Tristan grimaced, then turned his attention to a coffee stain that seemed to have tripled in size since he'd last noticed it. He had no idea how to get something like that out of a rug.
He wondered if Ivy would find his family's old frame house small and worn and unbelievably cluttered.
"So, what's the deal?" Gary asked. "One date for taking her cat? Maybe one date for each week you keep it," he suggested.
"Her friend Suzanne said she's very attached to this cat." Tristan smiled, rather pleased with himself. "I'm offering visitation rights."
Gary snorted. "What happens when Ivy doesn't miss the old furball anymore?"
"She'll miss me," Tristan said, sounding confident.
The doorbell rang. His confidence evaporated.
"Quick, how do you pick up a cat?"
"Buy her a drink."
"I'm serious!"
"By the tail."
"You're kidding!"
"Yup. I'm kidding."