To shut him up I gave him kitty treats, feeding him from fingers to fangs.

This made him happy until I stopped giving him treats and he complained, “Meow.”

“That’s it,” I told him, “only three or the vet is going to yell at me again.”

“Meow,” Boo didn’t care what the vet thought.

“Whatever,” I wasn’t in the mood to argue with Boo.

I dropped my cat, walked into the hall and pulled off my boots.

Nick owned the whole of the duplex; he let me stay in my side for half the mortgage, kind of. Even though I was now twenty-six (nearly twenty-seven), he didn’t like me paying for anything, even my rent. So, I put it in a bank account each month and gave him a check on New Year’s Day every year. He tore up the check so the money just sat there earning interest.

Sometimes you just didn’t argue with Nick.

The duplexes were weird. They weren’t in the greatest part of town, though I thought it was pretty or, at least, part of it was. It was officially Baker Historical District but the not-so-good part.

We were on Elati and had a park in front of our house but there was a subsidized high-rise apartment building on one side of the park and a low-rent apartment building across the park opposite it.

Our house was historically registered and Nick kept it in great condition, regardless of the ‘hood. He’d redone his side, knocked out walls, put in a bedroom and tore out his pink kitchen.

I had not redone my side.

So my side was a lot like a loft. Nick had put in a new bathroom for me and I’d carpeted the whole place in a thick, soft gray. The front room had huge arched windows, a brick wall, the other walls painted a soft lilac and it was enormous. It fit all my fancy furniture including the dove gray velvet chaise lounge that sat by the front window, my sweep-lined lilac couch which flanked a gleaming, square pub set with midnight blue, leather-studded pads on the benches and a blue-gray overstuffed chair and ottoman. My antique, oval, walnut dining table was at the inside wall. The half-circle-backed chairs I’d had re-upholstered in the same dove gray velvet as the lounge.

There was a closet that separated the living room from the bedroom, though, you could only loosely call it a “bedroom”. It was really a king-sized mattress set on a platform opened to the hall which sat four feet above the floor. I had to climb up three narrow stairs to get to it. There was storage underneath it and big areas cut in around the side walls of the bed that were above the lowered ceiling of the hall and closet. This was where I kept books, candles and a television set. This was my refuge. A little, feminine cave with fancy cream sheets, a fluffy green and cream patterned comforter and an overwhelming array of pillows from standard, to European, to bedrolls, to toss.

Then there was the bathroom and the kitchen. The hall was lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves that housed my massive CD collection. Mostly rock ‘n’ roll.

I loved my duplex and it was all for me. I didn’t have parties because I didn’t have very many friends and none of them I knew well enough to ask to a party. I didn’t have a rollicking good time in my bedroom refuge because I’d never had a boyfriend.

In my life, it was just Nick and me.

Before that, it was Nick and Auntie Reba and me.

Before that, before I could really remember, there was Mom and Dad and Mikey and me.

But, when I was six, Mom and Dad and Mikey died in a car crash. Well, Mom and Dad did, instantly. My brother Mikey died in surgery a couple hours later, though it was the same thing. I’d been with them and survived, even though I’d been in the hospital for three months.

Then I went home to Nick and Auntie Reba.

Auntie Reba was Mom’s only sibling, much younger than Mom. My Dad had no siblings and all the grandparents were dead except my Mom’s dad and, at the time, he had Parkinson’s and was in a home (now, he was dead too).

Auntie Reba and Nick had only been together a few months when my family died. They got married a few months after I got out of the hospital.

Then when I was fifteen, Auntie Reba died. She’d had a routine surgery, all went well, and then, a couple of days later, she just died.

A blood clot dislodged in her leg and lodged in her heart and then… gone.

Nick, who wasn’t even my real family, didn’t turn me out.

Something happened between us, losing Auntie Reba like that.

The only love I knew growing up (or remembered, really) was Auntie Reba and Nick’s love for me.

And I knew Nick’s love for Auntie Reba.

He loved her in a way that was indescribable. It wasn’t like she walked on water or was the earth and moon and stars.

It was different.

It was breath.

It was necessity.

She was the last of my blood and she was life to him.

So we hung on to each other. It was the only thing we could do.

Nick put up with me, which was saying a lot. I was a difficult child, an even worse teen, always on a mission to save a broken-winged bird; a shy schoolmate; a forest in Brazil I’d never even see. I didn’t party or get out of control in any normal way, but I was out of control just the same.

I became a social worker which had Nick worried. He didn’t think I needed any more causes.

“Christ, you’ve saved the trees, you’ve made the wilting violet into the prom queen and you’ve marched to take back the night. You can’t save the world, Jules,” Nick said.

“Maybe not, but I can try,” I retorted, full of youthful bravado.

“Then I hope the Lord saves us all from you trying to save us all,” Nick finished.

After graduating from college, I had a few jobs and kept my boundaries. Nick was surprised, he was certain I’d run amok in my quest to save the world.

This unfortunately put Nick at his ease. He’d thought I’d settled down.

Then I got the job at King’s Shelter for runaway kids.

This went well, for awhile. The kids responded to me and I’d found my niche.

That was until about four months ago when I walked into the Shelter and Roam and Sniff were looking funny.

* * * * *

I walked back into the kitchen opened a bottle of red wine and poured myself a glass in one of my big bowled, red wine glasses. I went back through the hall to the living room and threw myself on the chaise lounge.

Boo jumped up and settled in my lap.

“Meow,” he said to me.

“Quiet, Mommy’s thinking,” I told him and then slid my finger under his jaw and rubbed.

He purred.

I looked out the window and, even though I didn’t want to, I remembered.