by Kristina Neihouse
We sit at a small table by the front door. Steam swirls from Tim’s black coffee whenever the door opens to let in a burst of cold air. He is talking. I look everywhere except at him.
A milk steamer hisses, the man behind the counter taps the espresso pot on the counter before turning it upside down to dispel the small pad of condensed grounds into the garbage. A woman works next to him; both wear brown aprons over jeans and flannel shirts. She whips out a square of wax paper to grab a croissant for a guy with a bike helmet perched on top of light brown dreadlocks.
The smell of chocolate wafts by. I hold my warm mug of milky coffee, contemplate adding a packet of brown Sugar in the Raw then finally focus on Tim’s words.
It sounds like we are breaking up again.
“When you just had the one cat it was okay. But now with two I’m always stuffed up. I can’t play with clogged ears.”
Tim plays classical guitar, has all the gear—guitar with nylon strings, tiny stool to prop up his left leg, finely filed fingernails on his right hand. We met almost two years ago when we lived on the same floor in the downtown university dorm. The guitar case he carried through the halls gave him a striking, bohemian look.
I think of my cats at home in the one-bedroom apartment I rented after graduation. My first time living alone. It hadn’t felt like home until I got a cat from the shelter: a one-year-old longish haired orange and white boy I named Arlo.
Then during one break up or another, my stomach would clench against sadness as I locked the door each morning before work. Arlo meowing on the other side.
“You’re transferring your loneliness onto your cat,” a friend told me. “It’s not like he misses Tim.”
I got a second cat. And the two male cats, three years apart in age, introduced months apart in the small space where Arlo was already established, got along like brothers—played together, snuggled together, licked and cleaned each other. There were no more melancholy meows as I left for work in the morning.
Eventually Tim and I got back together and now he was telling me, without saying the actual words, “It’s me or the cats.”
He blows his nose on a napkin. The cash register dings, a plastic bag is snapped open. I wrap my scarf around my neck as the door opens.
Cats can live a long time. I could conceivably still have one or both of these cats when I turn forty in eighteen years. I couldn’t count on Tim being around at my next birthday in six months.
A tightness holds my chest. I’d never broken up with a guy without having another interest on the horizon. Even Tim was on the horizon when my long-distance boyfriend faded. I think of my apartment, and the cats—Arlo and Hobo—probably curled together: stripes of orange twirled with fluffs of black and white. Outside the window of the cafe the late afternoon sun reflects off a puddle of dirty snow at the base of a spindly tree. Spring is coming.
“It sounds like you shouldn’t be spending time at my apartment anymore.”
He leans back, meets my eyes. On our numerous breakups I’d never been the one to back away first. I push my chair away from the table and stand.
“That’s it?” Tim asks.
I don’t know how to answer, so I say nothing, afraid if I try to justify my decision I will take it back. The tightness in my chest lets go. A microwave beeps, the door is tapped open. I smell cinnamon.
“I’ll call if I find anything you left behind.”
Tim never left anything at my apartment, always gathered his belongings as if he didn’t plan to return.
I loosen my scarf as I exit the cafe into the warming end of winter.
Kristina Neihouse is a legally blind, writer, reader, and crazy cat lady. Her creative honors include 2018 Tennessee Williams Short Story contest 2nd place and 2018 Florida Book Awards silver medal for Young Adult fiction for her first novel, Knowing When to Leave. She recently moved back to Maine after living in the Florida Keys for 30 years.
Featured image Gizem Gökce at pexels-gizem-gokce-1072613075-39687329
