Page 100 of Knocked Up

I did nothing, very slowly.

She looked at Willa for about two minutes. She put her nose a half inch from Willa's ear and held it there. She sat back and looked some more. Willa made a noise in her sleep and moved one hand. Margaret's tail went once, hard, against the side of the bassinet.

Then she got out and went under it. She turned around twice on the rug and lay down.

That is where she sleeps, under the crib, since June. She is nineteen. She has bitten four veterinarians including my mother. She has never in her life allowed a human being to pick her up on purpose. She now goes on duty at about nine every night under a piece of furniture that contains a baby.

Bear sleeps against the leg on the other side.

Nobody in that house has said one word about it out loud. Beckett will not, because acknowledging it might make it stop. I will not, because I want to see how long they can both keep it up.

The second-graders sent a certificate on the last day of term, on construction paper, with a border of about four hundred stickers.

Honorary kitten namer. Willa June Douglas. age: 6 weeks. this is for life.

There were twenty-two signatures, two in pencil and one upside down.

"And they took a vote," Miss Ansah said.

"Of course they did."

"The new litter came in Monday and I told them the convention. Goaltenders who have won a Cup." She had her hands folded. "And Marcus put his hand up. He said Willa is a goalie's daughter, and could this one be goalies' daughters instead. It was unanimous, Doctor Reeves. I've never had a unanimous anything in eleven years of teaching."

So there are four kittens in the back room of that clinic named after the daughters of men who have stopped pucks for a living. There is a small tabby called Delphine and a black one called Pilar. I cannot say the other two without doing something with my face.

Beckett read the certificate at the counter and did not say anything for a while.

"They spelled June right," he said, and went and put it on the refrigerator. He moved the charter across two inches to make room. It is the first time anyone has moved that board since December.

On a Thursday at the end of June I slept for nine hours.

I went to bed at ten. I did not wake at midnight or at two or at four. I opened my eyes and it was light, properly light, the kind of light that is on the wall at seven. The house was quiet. I lay there for eleven seconds with my heart going like a bird, because I could not construct any explanation for it that was not terrible.

Then I heard him in the kitchen saying something in a low voice to a person who cannot talk.

I came down the hall with my hand on the wall.

He had her in the crook of his left arm and a bottle in his right hand. He was reading the back of a bag of dog food out loud to her in the four-in-the-morning voice. He went through the nutrition panel line by line like a man reading the news.

"Crude fat, minimum, twelve percent," he said. "That's a lot of fat, Willa."

"What time did she go down?"

"Ten."

"And she woke at…"

"Twelve fifty. And three ten. And five forty. And she's on the last one now."

"You did all four?"

"Yeah."

"Which night is this?"

He put the bag of food down.

"Tessa."