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passed through this rough patch.” I finished my drink just as the plane dropped suddenly, like a car going too fast over a hill. A woman behind me let out a sharp gasp, and my new accomplice jerked awake, looking up at me with her green eyes. I don’t know if she was more surprised by the plane’s sudden lurch or by her position, snuggled up against my arm.
    â€œIt’s just turbulence,” I said, although my stomach, which had lurched with the airplane’s first dip, had tightened with fear.
    â€œOh.” She straightened up, rubbing at both eyes with the palms of her hands. “I was dreaming.”
    â€œWhat were you dreaming about?”
    â€œI don’t know anymore.”
    The plane bucked a few more times, then began to straighten out. “I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about,” I said.
    â€œAnd?”

CHAPTER 4
LILY
    A year before the arrival of Chet, back when my beautiful orange cat Bess was still alive, I found her one morning trapped against the vegetable garden fence by a huge, matted black stray. Bess was hissing, her fur ruffled, but she was clearly in retreat. I watched as the feral tomcat leaped onto her back, sinking his claws into Bess’s haunches. I know that cats don’t really scream, but that is the only way I can describe the sound that Bess made. An almost human scream of terror. I charged forward, clapping my hands, and the stray tore off. I took Bess back into the house, and searched her fur for blood. There wasn’t any, but I knew that the horrible cat would be back.
    â€œJust keep Bess inside,” my mother said.
    I tried, but Bess cried at the door, and it was a semester during which my father was hosting his senior seminar at our house; students came and went Tuesday and Thursday nights, swinging through the front door to smoke cigarettes on our steps, and Bess could easily escape.
    It was spring and starting to get warm and I slept with my window cracked. One morning, just past dawn, I heard Bess yowling outside,a ferocious, terrified sound. I pulled on sneakers and ran downstairs, exiting out toward the back garden. In the gray, early morning light I spotted them right away, Bess backed against the fence again, the horrible black stray crouched and ready to attack. They were each frozen in the terrible moment, like a diorama at the Museum of Natural History. I clapped my hands together, yelling, and the stray merely turned its ugly matted head my way, appraised me with indifference, and turned back to Bess. I knew right then that the feral tom would kill Bess if he got a chance, maybe not on that morning but some morning, and that I would do anything to stop that from happening.
    There was a pile of paving stones on the edge of our unfinished patio. They had been there so long that moss had grown on some of them. I picked up the largest one I could carry; its edges were sharp and it was slippery with dew. I walked quietly and quickly to stand behind the stray. I didn’t need to be quiet. He was unafraid of me, intent on terrorizing Bess. Without thinking about it, I lifted the paving stone above my head and hurled it down onto him as hard as I could. He turned his head at the last moment and made a squalling sound as the edge of the stone caught him on the skull, the whole stone coming to rest on his body. Bess bolted, racing across the backyard as fast as I’d ever seen her move. The stray’s body shivered, then lay still. I turned to the house, expecting to see a bedroom light turn on, the house woken by the sound of murder, but there had hardly been any sound.
    It had been easy.
    The bulkhead to the basement was unlocked. I crept down the dark, leaf-slicked steps and groped around the entryway, finding one of the snow shovels that lined the wall. I used the edge of the plastic shovel to slip the paving stone off the stray, then pushed the shovel under the inert body. I could see no damage on the matted