Cat Coming Home by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

me on the landline, but I was up in the hills, I took a really long ride and didn’t have my phone turned on.” She pulled out a chair as Cora Lee poured a cup of tea for her. “She likes it even more than the last book. She …”
    She looked at Kit and went still. She rose at once and moved to the desk, standing in front of Kit, petting her and hiding Kit’s incensed, too revealing expression. She’d hurt Kit’s feelings. The tortoiseshell’s round yellow eyes were wide with hurt, with anger and dismay.
    Charlie’s first book had been about Kit herself, about an orphaned tortoiseshell kitten trying to survive in the wild on her own. It had been a great success with readers, and in Kit’s view it was the best book in the whole world. Now, here was Charlie with another book that was
not
about her, and the editor liked it better. Kit was hot with jealousy. The editor’s enthusiasm, and Charlie’s joy, seemed a terrible betrayal.
    “Editors always like the newest book best,” Charlie said, chagrined. “Or they say they do. They think that prods a writer to work harder. But,” she said, picking Kit up and cuddling her, “there’ll never be another book like
Tattercoat.
I’ll never, ever be able to write another story like that one. Everyone who reads it loves it, I get hundreds and hundreds of letters and emails telling me how much they love it.” Mavity and Cora Lee had read many of the letters; and of course Kit had read them all, each with a terrible thrill and with a deep and purring satisfaction.
    Their friends all knew, of course, that Kit had been the model for
Tattercoat,
for both the story and Charlie’s many drawings. But only a few people knew that
Tattercoat
was, in fact, Kit’s own true story, much of it told in Kit’s own words. So now of course Kit was jealous. Charlie held her close until at last Kit relaxed in her arms, her ears came up again, and she began to purr.
    “Still,” Charlie said, stroking Kit, “that doesn’t mean Ishould stop writing. It doesn’t mean I should stop trying, even though I know there will never, ever be another adventure as compelling, for me, as
Tattercoat.”
With Kit at last purring happily, Charlie sat down at the table, settling the tortoiseshell in her lap.
    “Well, your editor’s happy,” Cora Lee said, and Mavity smiled, as Charlie’s two friends, oblivious to the little cat’s anger, celebrated Charlie’s success.
    But Kit wasn’t the only one who had bristled. Across the table, Lori watched the three women with her fists clenched on her lap. Charlie and Mavity weren’t a bit interested that Pa was in the hospital and might die; neither one seemed to care at all. Charlie was so excited about an old book, so centered on herself. Didn’t grown-ups care about anything outside themselves? Didn’t
they
ever feel frightened? How come grown-ups were so smug and certain all the time, when it was all Lori could do just to hold herself together?
    She didn’t realize she was tearing her sandwich into little pieces until she looked up and saw Charlie watching her, saw the eyes of all three women on her. Cora Lee looked at Lori, then turned to Charlie. “I called Wilma this morning, I thought she’d call you. I guess you were riding. And when you called here …”
    “What?” Charlie said. “What is it? I didn’t check my messages, I just put the mare up and jumped in the car.” She looked at Lori, at her sullen expression. “What?” she said softly.
    “Lori’s pa was stabbed this morning,” Cora Lee said, “in the prison yard. They flew him to Salinas Valley Hospital,we just got back. He’s …” She glanced at Lori. “He’s not out of danger, but he’s stable.”
    Charlie reached across, took Lori’s hand in hers. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. You were with him this morning?”
    Lori nodded.
    “Were you able to talk with the doctor?”
    Again, a nod. But it was Cora Lee who answered. “The doctor says he’s strong, that