Then five.
The mewing grew closer.
Finally, a small orange face appeared in the duct opening, whiskers first, then eyes, then one tentative paw reaching toward the can.
Ginger emerged with the cautious dignity of a spelunker completing an expedition, sniffed the food, and began eating as though refueling after an ordeal.
Peter scooped her up.
“All kittens accounted for.”
We carried our naughty little inmates back to 4B. Peter secured them in the foster room and verified the latch’s closure with the thoroughness of a man who would never again leave his apartment without confirming door closure, a lesson he’d apparently absorbed at the molecular level.
Then we sat on the kitchen floor. Why we didn’tuse the stools was a mystery.
We just didn’t.
It was midnight.
The stove light was on.
Four kittens mewed behind a closed door.
General Tso sat in the kitchen doorway with the expression of a building inspector reviewing a code violation.
I started laughing.
Peter laughed, too.
We sat on the kitchen floor and laughed until the laughing turned into breathing and the breathing turned into quiet.
“The hallway is getting shorter,” Peter said.
“It was always short,” I said. “We were just pretending.”
He kissed me on the kitchen floor, in the stove light, with four kittens behind a door and a cat in the doorway, and the kiss tasted like Friday night and fish-scented cat food and the particular sweetness of two people who had tried to do the sensible thing and were discovering that the sensible thing and the right thing were not always the same.
“Good night, Peter.”
“Good night, Benj.”
I stood, dusted myself off, and went across the hall.
I closed my door.
I stood in my apartment with the lamp he’d brought me glowing warm in the corner and Princess Consuela chirping from her carrier and the residual taste of chamomile tea and cat food on my lips.
Something slid under my door.
I’d been slipped a Post-it, pushed under the gap between my floor and front door, with Peter’s handwriting.
The hallway is getting shorter.
I pulled the pen from my pocket and wrote beneath his words.
Crossing count: 49. Your move.
Rather than leave my apartment again and appear even more unhinged than our “crossing count” implied, I photographed the note, sent it in a text, and turned to ready for bed.
