Lawyer for the Cat by Lee Robinson Read Free Book Online Page B

having fun until she took it away. “Not on your diet!” she says.
    Mrs. Mackay is writing as if she’s Beatrice, the cat. Maybe she was crazy after all.
    I skip to the letters. There are carbon copies of letters written on an old typewriter whose lower-case b and t are off-center. One to the Highway Commission opposing a proposal to widen the highway onto the island, which will require removing some oak trees: “We who live on Edisto consider these trees our cherished friends. Some are three hundred years old. Would it not be wiser and kinder for us to slow down, rather than to cut them down?” A letter to the editor of the Columbia paper, from 1999: “The time has come for us to acknowledge that continuing to fly the Confederate flag at the State House is not done ‘to honor our history’ but to preserve a symbol which is offensive to many. At best, this is an appalling display of bad manners; at worst, it is deliberately cruel.”
    Another, from 1990: “My husband loved The Citadel. He served on its Board of Governors and gave generously to support scholarship students. Since his death I have tried to match his generosity, but I can no longer give to an institution which refuses to admit women. When you see fit to change your policy in this regard, I will resume my annual gifts.” Gina has stuck a note on this one: What does this have to do with the cat?
    After the carbon copies there’s another stack of letters, undated, all in the same handwriting. The earliest is dated almost thirty years ago:
    Dear Lila,
    I have given our recent conversation much thought. Of course it was distressing to hear that you are so unhappy. I should not have added to that unhappiness by saying what I did, but surely you know that my feelings about your current predicament are complicated by our history. Whatever you decide to do, please know that I shall always be your devoted friend. Stop by the store when you’re next in Charleston—I’ve made some improvements.
    Fondly, Simon
    P.S. Under the circumstances, you should probably resist your usual urge to file this away in your “archives.”
    I scan the next four letters from Simon. Nothing more about her unhappiness.
    Dear Lila,
    I will have to decline your invitation to lunch next week, as I am temporarily confined to the apartment. The surgeon (a woman, very smart but, like you, a little dictator) has decreed that I rest, lest I ruin my ankle completely.
    So pleased to hear about your new friend. I assume Beatrice likes Dante? (Don’t be so snooty about her lack of pedigree. I thought you were more egalitarian than that.) May she be as loyal a companion to you as McCavity has been to me.
    By the way, I’m sure you’ll hear, if you haven’t already, that the bookstore is closing. Soon King Street will be nothing but expensive shops, the same national chains you can find in any sizable town. Shall I venture to say this is one more sign that the world is going to hell, or do I just sound like a bitter old man?
    Fondly,
    S.

 
    Precious
    â€œMost cats don’t travel well,” Tony had said, and Beatrice seems determined to prove him right, her high-pitched cries starting the minute I put her in the car, becoming louder at each intersection—she doesn’t like moving, but she doesn’t like stopping, either—as I drive south on Highway 17 toward Edisto.
    â€œSettle down, honey,” I say, and she glares at me through the holes in the carrier as if to say, Don’t call me ‘honey.’ But as we leave the heavy traffic behind and cross the Wallace River she’s calmer, her complaints less dramatic, and by the time we turn onto Toogoodoo Road, she’s quiet.
    Does she know we’re headed toward Edisto Island? I remember reading about a lost cat who walked two hundred miles to find home. My sense of direction can’t compare: I frequently get lost when I leave the