He shrugs. “Maybe. Can we?”
“Of course,” I say, taking Elias’s hand as I stand.
“Why Rose?” I ask as we head down the path between the rosebushes. “Your name.”
“Oh. It’s a … hard story.” His eyes are down.
“Not ready?” I ask.
“Not yet.”
“Okay.”
His eyes come up. He gives me a slight smile, relieved that I understand that some things take time.
***
Elias’s other place is the animal shelter. He seems surprised when the women working there are excited to see him. It’s all “we missed you” and “how are you” and “it hasn’t been the same.” Elias’s cheeks get bright red, and it’s absolutely adorable.
When the greetings settle down, we go into the “enrichment room,” where Elias plays with every single cat. After a while, one of the women pokes her head into the room and says, “There’s one that’s not in here. Two actually. A mama and baby.”
Elias’s eyes light up at that, but he finishes his rounds before we walk out to the kennels. At the end, there’s a black cat with a tiny white kitten.
“One kitten is unusual,” Elias comments as the woman opens the kennel.
The woman nods in agreement and explains, “Young mama.”
Elias kneels in front of the open kennel. The black cat starts purring. Elias reaches in and scratches her under the chin. The green eyes close.
“Is this … where did this cat come from?”
“A lady brought her in. Said the cat showed up with the kitten at her bodega.”
Elias stares at the woman then at the black cat again. “This is … this isOnyx.”
“Huh?”
“This is my—well, she’s not mine. I used to feed her when I worked at the bodega.”
“Ah,” the woman says, as though that answers a longstanding question. “I always wanted to ask where you worked.”
“You did?” Elias is clearly surprised.
“I didn’t want to be nosy, but—anyway. You used to feed this cat?”
“Yes,” Elias replies, still looking stunned. “But she vanished. She … had a kitten, I guess. Oh my god, I can’t believe this. I thought she was … I thought something bad happened to her.”
Elias looks up at me with such a hopeful expression that I ask, “So we’re getting a cat?”
He grins. And it’s so fucking delightful that I manage to hold back my wince when he says, “Two actually.”
***
“So I’ve been thinking,” Elias says when he finally leaves ourtwonew cats in their little nest in the closet. I could tell he wanted them in the main part of the warehouse apartment, but he put them in the smaller space so they’d feel safe. They can come out when they’re ready.
“About what?” I ask as I chop up the red pepper for the stir fry.
It’s strange. I once thought I wouldn’t be able to spend time like this with Elias because I didn’t have a role through which I could act it out. But I realized as soon as I stopped acting, that I didn’t need to.
