“No worries.” Donovan belched. “I’m taking my leave. They won’t miss me.” Pat didn’t quite know what to make of that and wondered what the punishment was for desertion. Firing squad? He was not opposed.

“Here’s one more. Mud in your eye.” Jack slapped the eggcup on the end table like he was betting the house with it. “I’ll tell you, when I was over there they never had a good count of us. They kept better track of the bullets than the boys. For damn sure.” Jack was about to revisit some dark trenches of memory as Seaman Donovan belted another eggcup of Seagram’s and stroked his throat as it went down. He was shifting his boots on the floor, not sure what to make of this storm or his port in it, when suddenly the couch poked him hard and sharp in his ass. The sailor jumped up.

“Ah, sorry, mate, the damn cat. His name is Tommy too. Hannah, why didn’t you leave this foul beast locked in the store?” As Donovan rubbed his rear end, Jack stuck his head down at his feet to take a look, then laughed like a devil who had planned it all along. “Pat, son, grab the feckin cat out from under there.”

Pat squeezed by the sailor, who almost fell into the coffee table. Ignoring all of this, Hannah came into the room, took up the eggcups and replaced them with mule mugs, and returned to the kitchen entirely fed up. Pat crouched down and found Tommy jammed under the coils of the couch, hissing, ears pinned back. He looked up at his father, who was wheezing with laughter.

“He won’t come out.”

“It’s not up to him, now, is it?” Jack poured another round in the mugs. “Come on, Pat, take him by his scruff and yank him out of there.”

The rain pelted the windows like shrapnel. Pat took another look at Tommy the cat and with eye contact tried to make it clear it was him and he meant no harm. Pat reached in, and that’s when Tommy bit him.

It was no warning bite—with the storm, his dislocation, and the dark boots of the drunk stranger, the cat was terrified. His fang sank right into Pat’s middle finger. Pat twitched, and then Tommy grabbed with his claw and brought the boy’s hand closer. Before pain could even bloom across the boy’s face, the cat had finished his attack and bolted along the baseboard. Pat yelped in shock and pulled his hand back out, his wrist raked and scratched, his finger pulsing with dark blood.

“Goddamn it.” Jack threw back his whiskey and stood, inspecting his son’s finger. “Now what have you done, Pat? Jesus. He mangled ya good. Go put it under the sink.”

Hannah dashed into the room. “For the love of God . . .”