The Widow’s Web

Words are hard to say when you realize your beloved white porcelain cat figurine with green gem eyes has disappeared. I live by myself since my husband died four years past, I don’t know who could have taken it.

Maybe it was one of my live furballs? Dizzy dangles her tail lower today, a sure sign of guilty suspicion. Mabel, the tabby, loves to cuddle, but she stays away at this hour. I watch the shrewd scavenger burrow herself into every cushion and pillow only to reappear the moment I start to suspect she has suffocated herself.

It cannot not be my loyal companions. What use do they have for my display in their cat worlds?

It could have been my daughter. She visited two weeks ago. You would think I would have noticed my family heirloom missing long before today. She knows she is going to inherit it when I die.

She always wants money. And even though I gave her a check in the amount she requested, maybe she needed even more. “For what?” I wonder. Groceries. Bills. Alcohol. Drugs? Paid sex? Wait, no she has a boyfriend. I bet she stole the cat, sold it and gave him the money. He seemed to be a nice man with an established career. He owns a boat – a big boat with an upstairs and a downstairs. Why would a thirty-something year-old-man ask his girlfriend to steal from her mom to support his boating habit? 

She does spend a lot of time with him though. Can’t go to Sunday brunch with me because she goes to church with him. I guess she realized she would have to do something to get through the heavenly gates one day.

I doubt it is my daughter. I raised her well.

The plumber looked suspicious when he came to fix the toilet last week. I had no choice but to call for his services. The toilet’s spontaneous waterfall nearly ruined my tile floor. I couldn’t risk having to pick out a new pattern of flooring when the existing squares felt so perfectly aligned with the wall color.

He came in the house with a tool box definitely large enough to fit the porcelain cat. I think his name was George or Sammy or Shane. His first name was a solid momma-loving name. And his last name was as Irish as they get with an apostrophe after the capital “O”. I am sure his parents raised him well just like I did my daughter. He works hard in his manual labor job. I know he can be trusted. He isn’t the thief.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday. Gone over three hours. I took an extra thirty minutes to stop at Mike’s Delicatessen and Bakery for a corned beef on rye, extra Swiss, mayo, and horseradish. And for Mike’s famous apple pie with a double butter crust.

I got to talking to Steve, his son, about his dad, the deli’s namesake. We talked about the this and that and then more. Steve shared his concern about his dad’s ongoing denial that he could still operate the meat slicer.

“He damn near shaved off the tops of three of his fingers the last time he attempted to slice a pound of ham extra thin.” Steve offered me single slice samples of the sale meats and cheeses as he talked. I don’t think he was trying to upsell me. He knows I only buy more if I decide to buy more. I added a pound of dill Havarti to my order.

My stop at Mike’s coincided with the mail person’s daily delivery, give or take fifteen minutes. A half hour more with snow.

I used to know my mail carrier well. Had the same one for over fifteen years. While I never knew her name, I learned about her when I happened to open the door as she put the mail in the box mounted on my porch.  Nice lady she was. Loved God and her family in that order. Each Christmas I left ten dollars in an envelope, labeled “Postal Lady,” taped to the front of the mailbox. She always had kind words and a smile for me.  

Now I have grouchy Mr. X, as I named him. A sad, unkempt man who looks like he is delivering mail at gunpoint. Not sure why he works at a job he hates. It’s obvious he does not want to talk let alone be in the presence of humans or dogs. I think the nuclear reactor facility nearby is hiring a night operator. He could train to become one.

I don’t think Mr. X stole my cat either. He looks like a deviant, but works for one of the most important government entities – the United States Postal Service. To accuse him could deny me my Wednesday shopping ads and my sixteen magazine subscriptions. My mainstays.

And I know the deadbolt was locked. When I came home from the doctor, I walked in the back door and towards the kitchen to put my sandwich and Havarti in the fridge. The meat samples at the store had driven away my hunger. I immediately went to the front door and twisted the brass thumbturn counter clockwise from two o’clock to ten. I am certain is was locked because if it wasn’t, I would have called my daughter.

My missing cat sculpture traveled from Europe in the 1800’s. I am not sure who in my family brought it to the U.S. or how it ended up as a point of constant bickering between my mom and her sister. I learned my first swear word listening to one of their holiday arguments.

My mom gave me the cat two days after my grandpa Hank, her dad, died. My mom and my aunt used “Calico Cat, Run 2” and “Imperial Turtle of the River” to broker a peace agreement between the two of them. I received the cat with its peering green eyes.

“The eyes are real emeralds,” she whispered to me out my aunt’s earshot. “Don’t you ever lose that cat.”

My cousin Tommy was bestowed with the turtle. I am not sure what my aunt thought her preteen son would do with the ceramic. He looked at it and shrugged his shoulders. I know he was hoping for my grandpa’s baseball mitt. I didn’t pay much attention then, but I am guessing the sparkle in the turtle’s tiny blue eyes came from precious stones as well. I think my mom later called the negotiation value for value.

“I was not giving into the demands of your aunt,” she told me. “She would steal the clothes off your back even though she had no room in her closet.”

I know my aunt has nothing to do with the cat’s disappearance because she died eight years ago. And my family called a truce on family possession hoarding soon after.

“It leaves me with on only explanation,” I say as I take a deep breath. “I stole the cat. More tea, sergeant?”

“Why would you steal your own cat?” Sergeant Moore asks me. “I could charge you with falsely reporting a crime.”

He eats another bite of Mike’s double butter crust apple pie.

He knows I am harmless.

I am glad the police did not send Lieutenant Birch again. He had no patience for tea.

At least this time, I have pie and a better story to tell.