Lawyer for the Cat by Lee Robinson Page A

to work at the public defender’s office? Thank God she’d done him the favor of leaving him—after only a year, can you imagine!—though everyone said she’d lost her mind. If she thought she’d ever find a husband better than their Joe, she had another think coming.
    And now I look for the turnoff to Oak Bluff Plantation Road. (“It’s a dirt road, on your right, about half a mile after you pass the Presbyterian church,” said Gail Sims, the caretaker, who’s meeting me at the house. “The road’ll wind around and you’ll see a coupla trailers and then an old store and not much after that you’ll come to the gate. Just push it open—it’s not locked.” As we pass through the gate the cat lifts her chin, looks straight ahead. She can’t see what I see—the glimpse of gray-white behind the row of oaks, the red roof against the clear sky—but she knows where we’re going.
    The house isn’t as large as I’d imagined, and badly needs painting. It seems very plain, boxlike, until I realize I’ve approached the back side of the house. I follow a brick walkway around to the front, and then I can see the glory of the place: the view from the bluff overlooking the river. There’s a wide piazza running the length of the house on the main floor, reachable by a long, wide flight of stairs.
    I’m looking up the stairs at what must be the front door, dreading the thought of having to lug Beatrice in her carrier, when a young woman appears at ground level, right in front of me, as if she’s come from nowhere.
    â€œOh, precious!” she says to the cat. “I’ve been missing you!” And to me: “I’m Gail. Come on in.” She gestures toward what seems to be a basement door, under the stairs. “We can talk down here if that’s okay—save you the climb. It’s kind of a mess upstairs, anyway.” She leads me into a large, musty-smelling kitchen, one countertop completely covered with magazines and newspapers. “Watch your head. In the old days this part of the house was just used for storage,” she explains, “but Lila turned it into an apartment for herself, turned the storeroom into this kitchen, and she stayed down here most of the time. This room over here,” she says as we cross a narrow hallway, “is where she did her writing. Lila, she was always writing. I told her she should get a real desk—you know, with drawers to put stuff—but she just wouldn’t hear of moving her papers and things off that old table. I did my best to help her keep things straight, but she wouldn’t let me touch them.” Indeed, there are piles of papers on the long table behind the sofa. But despite its clutter, the room is inviting and warm, with a fire going strong in the fireplace. “Billy says this is the only part of the house that’s livable.”
    â€œBilly?”
    â€œMy fiancé. We been together a while now.” She looks about thirty, boyish, her wheat-colored hair cut short, her jeans clean but showing some wear and tear. “He works on the shrimp boats.” She moves some magazines off the sofa, gives the cushion a swat. Dust rises, swirls in the light from the fire. “You can set right here. Sorry the place is such a mess. She wouldn’t let anybody touch it while she was alive, but I shoulda come down here and cleaned up after she passed. I guess I—I just couldn’t get it through my head that she wasn’t coming back.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” I say, “this shouldn’t take long.”
    â€œTime to let you out of jail,” Gail says to Beatrice, opening the door to the carrier. “Come here, you precious thing, come to Gail.” She sits on the wide hearth across from me and the cat settles in her lap. “There! You know where you belong, don’t you, precious?” The fire