Twenty years, I think. That’s a long time not to be speaking to your own brother, and him living just a ten-cent phone call away. I wonder. She couldn’t just not give a hoot about him. They must have been real mad at each other. And mad at the whole world, too. Makes you wonder what kind of parents they had, with one of them growing up loving only cats and the other only money.
Kate is staring out the window and stroking the old stray tomcat between the ears, and it hits me: there isn’t a person in the world she loves or even hates. I like cats fine, too, but if I didn’t have people that mattered, it wouldn’t be so good. I say “So long” quietly and go out.
16
“I always wondered if the poor soul had any relatives.” That’s what Mom says when I tell her about Kate’s telegram. “And now she’s lost her only brother. That’s sad.”
“I think it’s sad she never talked to him for twenty years. All these years I’ve wished I had a brother,” I say.
“If it’s her only brother, she’s going to have to do something about his estate,” says Pop. That legal mind, it never rests. I guess he’s got a point about this, though. How is Kate going to deal with lawyers, or undertakers, or anyone? She can’t hardly stand to talk to people like that.
“What’ll she have to do?”