Mr. Keller takes over, crouching down and looking beneath each bed, in the bathtub, pushing away the furs in the winter coat closet. He looks inside all their boots, even though they’re way too small for Tiger to crawl into. He goes outside with a bag of catnip and lies flat on the snow-covered grass, looks underneath the porch. He looks in the washing machine, in the dryer, between the quilts stacked in the linen closet. It’s like a picture book, Where’s Waldo?, The Runaway Bunny.

Christine, the day nurse, pitches in. She opens up a can of tuna and goes outside, calls out to the cat, the can held high like the Statue of Liberty’s torch. She plods up and down the hills, her purple coat a speck in the distance, a blot on the white landscape.

Annie watches them. She does nothing. They think she’s looking, but she’s with Suzy, holding her, stroking her hair. “Tiger wanted to be outside like a real tiger, baby. He’s a jungle cat through and through. He would’ve had you for dinner.” Everyone has forgotten about Suzy, she thinks. They’ve all abandoned her for the cat. The stupid, fucking dead cat.

“Where is ’eeee?” Suzy moans into Annie’s shirt. And Annie wants so badly to take the toddler’s face in her hands, squeeze her, and tell her that he’s gone for good, that she should feel lucky she has someone who actually cares to look out for her. That sometimes you have to strip off the Band-Aid, and it’ll sting for a bit. It might even leave a mark. But that in the end it’s all for the greater good to heal the wound.

“You left the door open, didn’t you?” Mrs. Keller has the door of her room ajar, her raspy, fading voice coiling its way to Suzy’s room.

“You keep blaming me, Belle. But why would I do that? It’s twenty fucking degrees outside. It was probably Serena. We should ask her when she comes this evening.” Suzy is finally asleep, worn out from all her crying, her thumb tucked in her mouth, Lolly back where she belongs in Suzy’s arms.

“Ask Annie. She might know,” Mrs. Keller says, and there’s a hint, the slightest drop of bitterness there. And Annie can sense it, can hear it, can smell the pungent suspicion steeped in those words.

She knows. Or she thinks she knows.

“Annie was asleep,” Mr. Keller says. “I already asked her.” The door to Mrs. Keller’s room closes after that.

Mrs. Keller is getting weaker. She’s still crying like the first cat, the rotting meat cat. But her body can’t take the burden of her sobs. They’re quieter now. Annie can sleep better.