Cat Raise the Dead by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Read Free Book Online

farm and already five children of her own to worry over. Now that she didn’t see the girls except every few years, and now that Wenona, her one good friend, was dead these long years, and Jane Hubble wasn’t here anymore, the doll wardrobes were all she had.
    She missed Jane. She missed Wenona. Years ago, when Wenona died, before she, Mae, ever came to live here at Casa Capri, she had known she would spend the last years of her life alone. Wenona had been her only real friend. In little theater all those years together, Wenona in charge of scenery and publicity, and they’d had such lovely times. Their long walks through the village, and shopping together, going up to the city. Wenona had loved to look at fabrics for the doll wardrobes though she didn’t sew. Wenona couldn’t really love the dolls, not like she cared about cats.
    She had to laugh, the way Wenona always had to go feed the stray cats down at the wharf. As if that were her sole responsibility. And the way she spoiled her own cats, putting in cat doors, buying special food, tramping the neighborhood calling if one of them didn’t come home. Always worrying over her cats.
    But then Wenona went on down to Hollywood with a wonderful chance to work in the MGM prop department. She’d thought Wenona would be back, that she really wouldn’t like Hollywood, but she had stayed. She came up once a year, and they had a few days together, but then the cancer, very quick, and Wenona was gone.
    And she was alone again.
    Wenona dead. James dead. And her own daughters across the country. When Jane Hubble had come to live here, that was a blessing, but now Jane, too. The nurses said she was over in Nursing, said where else would she be? But she didn’t believe them.
    She’d given Jane one of her five dolls before Jane had the stroke—they said it was a stroke. Once she asked a nurse if Jane still had the doll, and the nurse had looked so puzzled. But then she said yes, of course Jane had the doll.
    If Jane had gone away or died, she’d like to have the little doll back again as a keepsake to remind her of Jane. But she didn’t ask. They were so strict here, strict and often cross. They took good enough care of you, kept you clean, changed your linens and washed your clothes, and the food was nice, but she sometimes felt as if Adelina Prior’s hard spirit, her cold ways, rubbed off on all the staff. There was no one Mae could talk to.
    When she had phoned her trust officer to tell him that she didn’t think Jane really was over in Nursing, he treated her as if she was senile. Said he was sorry, that he had talked with the owner, Ms. Prior, and Jane was too sick to have visitors, that he saw nothing wrong. Said that the Nursing wing was too busy and crowded with IV tubes for anyone to visit, that visitors got in the way and upset the sick patients.
    Jane would hate it over there. Jane was so wild and full of fun. In that way, Jane was like Wenona. Those years when Mae and Wenona roomed together, Wenona was always the bold one, always making trouble. She would never put up with any kind of rules, from their landlord or from the manager of little theater when she was helping with the sets. And Jane was like that, too, always telling the nurses how stupid the rules were. She made everyone laugh, so crazy and reckless—until they took her away.
    Four times Mae had tried to go over to Nursing to visit, and every time a nurse found her and turned her chair around and wheeled her back. So demeaning to be wheeled around against her will, like a baby.
    Eula said maybe Jane packed up and walked right out of Nursing, even if she did have an attack. Eula was her only friend now. Eula—so sour and heavy-handed.
    She had wanted to tell Bonnie Dorriss, who ran the Pet-a-Pet program, about Jane, but she decided not to. Bonnie Dorriss was too matter-of-fact. That sturdy, sandy-haired, freckled young woman would never believe Jane