Cat in Glass Read Free

found a small leather sticker that said
Producto de Buenos Aires
in shiny gold letters.
    Just for fun, she clapped the hat over her own short curls. It fit perfectly. It smelled like peanuts and cigars and sweet, green grass.
    Kathy smiled and stuck her hands in her pockets, wondering how far away New York City was.

CLOTAIRE’S BALLOON
    A s I approach my seventieth birthday, I find myself thinking more and more often of Aunt Henrietta and of the terrible thing my brother, Harry, and I did to her many years ago. Autumn has arrived, and I am growing old; perhaps that accounts for it. I have recently taken to spending an hour each morning on the porch. From my chair, I am occasionally lucky enough to see a balloon or two drift by, high and huge and wonderful, silent as clouds. Sometimes a breeze rattles the sumac leaves just the right way, or I catch a breath of apple cider on the air. Then I think perhaps I understand Aunt Henrietta as I never did when I was young. It isn’t regret that I feel exactly—
    something more like wistfulness. If only Henrietta had fully respected our childhood view of justice; if only Clotaire the balloonist had respected it a little less.
    When Harry was eight and I was ten, our mother fell ill. At that time, we had wonderful lodgings in the city, in an ornate copper-roofed house that overlooked one of the parks. Harry and I were in the habit of sneaking about in the dark after we were supposed to be asleep. One evening early in spring, we peeked around the drawing room doorway. By the warm, uneven light of the fire, we saw Mother in her dressing gown and a quilt, seated in the largest and softest of the armchairs. Father sat beside her on the floor, leaning against her knees, an empty brandy glass tilted in his hand. I had never seen him sit on the floor before. Neither of them spoke or moved, but something about the way they stared into the flames made me feel quite empty and afraid. At that moment, I realized for the first time just how ill Mother really was.
    Father’s subsequent actions bore this out. In the middle of May we moved to a house in the country, where Mother spent most of her time lying in bed in a sunny room upstairs. The doctor gave orders that Harry and I were to see her no more than an hour each day and that even then we must be quiet and try not to excite her. This news terrified and infuriated me. In retribution, I took to breaking vases and scattering silverware about on the floor while Harry looked on in awe.
    Two things happened because of this. First, Harry and I were firmly encouraged to stay outdoors most of the time, which is how we discovered Clotaire. And second, Father sent for his sister, Henrietta. So Clotaire and Aunt Henrietta entered our world together, the same way in which they departed from it.
    One of those first country spring afternoons, as we stood with Father on the spacious lawn in front of our new house, Harry and I spied a balloon drifting high in the distance. I had never seen a balloon before and wasn’t at all sure what it could be. I still remember just how it looked—shining silver, with a magnificent sun, moon, and stars about its circumference. It belonged to Clotaire, of course, though we didn’t know it yet.
    I jumped up and down, trying to see it better over the treetops, and cried, “What is it? It’s so beautiful!”
    “That’s a balloon, Catherine,” said Father. “There’s a man hanging from it in a basket. He’s taking a ride.”
    Harry leapt up as well, his cheeks all aglow, shouting, “Daddy, make him bring it here! I want a ride, too!”
    Father laughed. His laughter in those days was brief and quiet and always made me think of Mother, lying pale in her bed. “I’m afraid he’s too far away to hear us,” he said, reaching down to tousle Harry’s brown curls.
    Harry squirmed but flashed one of those empty, sunny smiles of his. Father looked down at him, returned the smile rather stiffly, and said, “Come inside