The Question Authority. Rachel Cline

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      First Edition

      Published by Red Hen Press

       www.redhen.org

      “Good morning little school girl, can I go home with you?”

      —traditional

      1

      Nora

      BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

      Sometimes I get grief and resentment confused. Also fear and anticipation. It’s not that I don’t know what the words mean, but that whatever it seems like I should be feeling (grief over my mother’s death, excitement about a potential date) is not what I am feeling. It’s been like this since I was a kid, but it’s taken me until recently to put it together: I have a fundamental emotional wiring problem. Is fifty-three too old to be learning new things about your psyche?

      The trouble of the moment—what’s keeping me awake on a work night—is the problem of my lost cat. “Lost” is a misnomer; I let him out. I had this idea that by letting him roam I was honoring his essential cat-ness, his life as a hunter and wanderer. Only it’s February and I live in New York City and, even though Brooklyn Heights is a tree-lined neighborhood where you rarely see a car traveling at more than parking-seeking speed, it’s been almost three days now. People have found him before, and called me—he has a tag—but that was only one night away, at most.

      Given the timing, it’s likely that my cat-freedom gambit was some kind of hedge against my mother’s death. Adeline died eighteen months ago: three months before I adopted the cat. Prior to her death, I’d convinced myself that she wasn’t all that important to me—that her role in my life was more like that of an eccentric aunt than the woman who’d breastfed me till I was three (or so she claimed). Every single time she saw me, she opened with a criticism (“You look pale.” “What happened to your hair?” “What are you wearing?”); she’d never noticed or admitted that I was fundamentally depressed from age thirteen to thirty-five (when: Prozac); and—adding insult to injury—she did none of what they call “advance planning” for her own demise. She left me not only broke but awash in legal and financial perplexities. I had no choice but to move back into this apartment, the apartment I grew up in, after I’d sold its contents. Maybe by letting the cat roam, I felt better about feeling trapped myself?

      In any case, I was proud of my liberated cat, of trusting him to find his own way home—it mirrored the way I was raised. Back then, I was not the only kid around here with an apartment key on the same length of twine as the key to her roller skates. I had a best friend, and a three-dollar-a-week allowance, and—as long as we stayed on the right side of Atlantic Avenue and were home for dinner—we did what we pleased. Beth did, anyway. She was the brave one. But that’s another story.

      Tin Man, please come home.

      2

      Nora

      Iwake up on Thursday morning expecting the cat to be with me, emanating warmth and profound disinterest from his customary sleeping spot in the V between my butt and my feet. The light in the bedroom is gray and bright— unmistakably after seven—but finding that Tin Man’s spot is empty throws my whole morning routine into question. I hate my job, I hate my life, I live in the emptiest apartment in the universe . . . what’s the point? Under normal circumstances, I would just bury my face in the cat and tell him how much I love him and how little I want to get up, but with no cat, I’m stymied. I don’t want to say that stuff out loud to myself—it sounds pathetic and ridiculous. I sit up and gaze dolefully at the stupendous view. The harbor is silver-gray and choppy and the orange lozenge of the Staten Island Ferry chugging by is perfect in color, shape, and size. The cranes and gantries of Port Newark have a poetic quality in the hazy distance. Even Governor’s Island looks charming. What am I to do with my conflicting emotions?

      I live in my grandfather’s apartment. He’s long dead, and it’s got nothing in it but the crap I bought at IKEA when I moved in, but it’s a penthouse with four bedrooms, three baths, a library, a music room, and two working fireplaces—a relic from a time when a poet could actually get rich. Back then, brownstones were going up everywhere (like condos, these days) and were far too hoi polloi for a grand figure like my poet granddad. Now, it’s worth a fortune—even after the recent crash. But I am not allowed to sell it under the terms of his trust. This is something my mother might have fixed before she died, if she’d been willing to admit that dying was in the cards, but she wasn’t, and didn’t, and so. Here I am again in Brooklyn Heights.

      To anyone who didn’t grow up here, the first impression is always of wealth. Walking under old, leafy trees, you catch glimpses of chic sitting rooms and private gardens; historic landmarks and secret-seeming alleys; adorable carriage houses and ornate mansions; as well as churches for all comers. Standing at the edge of the Promenade to watch the sunset, you will invariably hear someone (perhaps your own inner real estate agent) pronounce the words “million-dollar view.”

      When my grandfather СКАЧАТЬ