Last Run by Hilary Norman Page B

from the bed, heard Sam stir but not wake, and padded out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
    Woody came out of the kitchen, still half-asleep, tail wagging.
    ‘Sorry,’ Grace told him softly, bent with difficulty to stroke his head, and went to put the kettle on.
    One of Lucia’s camomile-based teas might just help, though she doubted anything was going to soothe her. Speaking to Claudia might have eased things a little, but even on Seattle time it
was out of the question, and anyway they’d only spoken a couple of days ago.
    ‘Where is she, Woody?’ she asked the dog as he settled by her feet.
    The probability was, she realized, that Cathy was with Kez, and she wondered if that was part of what was so troubling her, then decided she’d have been equally concerned if Cathy had gone
missing with a new boyfriend.
    Not missing, she reminded herself. Just out.
    She went across to the phone, put out her hand to pick it up.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘Leave them be.’
    Maybe this was the reason Cathy hadn’t called. Maybe she had been giving off some air of disquiet since she’d begun seeing Kez, and maybe Cathy was angry about that, or maybe she was
uncertain herself. Or maybe there was, simply, nothing to talk about.
    In her womb, the baby stirred.
    ‘It’s OK, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘Just your mom being a neurotic mess.’
    Plenty more where that came from, she supposed, wondering for at least the hundredth time if she was up to this, if maybe she and Sam were too old, because there was just so
much
responsibility, so much potential for pain alongside the joy.
    No going back now, she told herself.
    ‘Nor wanting to,’ she told the baby.
    And made her tea.
    Cathy telephoned at five after seven.
    ‘I feel bad,’ she said, ‘about not calling you last night.’
    ‘It was so unlike you.’ Grace managed to conceal her relief as well as her irritation. ‘We were worried.’
    Cathy told her how sorry she was, then asked about the Hoffmans.
    ‘It must have been terrible.’
    ‘They’re being very strong,’ Grace said. ‘Plenty of people around them, helping.’
    ‘For now,’ Cathy said, perceptively.
    Grace waited a moment. ‘Are you OK?’
    She waited for Cathy to tell her where she had spent the night or, at least, where she was this morning. Managed not to pry. Fastest way to lose her.
    ‘I’m fine,’ Cathy answered.
    No more than that.
    Cathy and Kez had been book buying at B. Dalton in CocoWalk late the previous afternoon when Cathy had spotted Saul and Terri emerging from an exhibit of African wildlife
sculptures in a gallery on Grand Avenue. They’d all chatted for a few moments and Saul had suggested they have a drink, and Cathy had been about to say yes when she’d caught Kez’s
expression and quickly made an excuse. Saul had grinned understandingly and they’d all gone on their way.
    ‘Sorry about that,’ Kez had said a moment later. ‘I’d like to go home, and I just didn’t feel like company.’
    Cathy had glanced swiftly at her. ‘Would you like me to go?’
    ‘I’d rather go home with you,’ Kez had said.
    Banyan trees and palms were all around the property on Matilda Street, plenty of grass and stone paths – in need of weeding – leading from the sidewalk to an old white clapboard
house with ramshackle looking wooden steps leading up to Kez’s home on the second floor.
    Just a stone’s throw from some of the priciest gated houses in Coconut Grove and in walking distance from the commercial buzz of CocoWalk, yet thanks to a deal Kez had struck with its
owner, an artist presently living in Europe, the two-roomed apartment was both affordable and hers for the foreseeable future.
    ‘I shot some photos of her work that she liked, and she said she’d be happy for me to live here and take care of the place while she’s away,’ Kez had told Cathy as they
drank cold white wine out on the porch. ‘After Europe, she’s planning on some time in the Bahamas, so it could