As for me, I’m not worried one iota about the damned cat. It’s a nuisance, so far as I’m concerned. I don’t understand its affection for me, because I rarely offer food and my lap is not soft. The kids find it hilarious, the way this moggie follows me around and says miaow when I leave to visit the bathroom or something. It’s a jealous creature too. If Leo brings me a passionflower, as he sometimes does, that cat will shred the petals the instant my back’s turned, and more than once it’s stalked his hand or his foot when he settles down beside me on the sofa of an evening. Still, despite its distaste for the rituals of human courtship, the cat is an agreeable cat, and I go so far as to stroke its fur as we bend and twist along the Kauai highway, because I don’t want it to fret about its condition. The vet will fix whatever’s wrong. I repeat this thought aloud to Lindquist.

“He’d better,” she says grimly.

I consider delivering some nonsense about how the cat’s had a pretty long run, wouldn’t you say, I mean I’ve never heard of a cat living nineteen years. But that’s the last thing you want to hear about something you love. It doesn’t matter if it’s had a long life or a happy life; there’s never enough life.

Instead, I say, “Didn’t you and Mallory find it together? On the beach or something?”

“Yes. The day we met.”

“That’s sweet. And who got custody?”

“Mallory had her before Australia. Then I took her home with me after we returned. His wife didn’t like cats, and after she—after she came home from the hospital, he thought he should stick around his family more. He should try to be a good husband.”

“Poor Mallory. It just wasn’t in him.” I brace myself around a particularly high-wire turn. “Say. Where did it stay when you were flying around the world?”

“Oh, the Rofranos used to take her for us. They had all these children to lavish attention on her. She loved stowing aboard, but she was better off with them. Especially in Spain.”

The puss stirs in my lap. I give it a reassuring scratch between the ears, so it won’t get any dangerous ideas. “Spain was no place for a cat, was it?”