“No, I didn’t dare intrude on your private conversation, whatever that was about, which was already awkward enough, if I may say so, the way you left me alone in the middle of the interview, and I did need to use the facilities, as I had indicated, so I thought I would compose myself, and then, if you hadn’t come back out by then, and if it was still out on the ledge, I thought I could try to call to the cat to tell it to come back to the open window. I didn’t think it would fall. I still don’t see why everyone is so upset.”

“Are you mad?” George said quietly. “How could you think there was no danger?”

“I don’t think you are being very sympathetic,” Ruth said, edging past them into the room toward the table where her tape recorder and notebook lay. Rebecca took Joe Green from George and held him to her chest. He struggled to get loose, but she tightened her grip.

“I was nervous at that moment,” said Ruth, her voice rising in self-defense as she picked up her notebook. “Which led to arguably poor judgment on my part, for which I have already expressed my regret. In addition to some allergy concerns, I will confide in you, under the circumstances, that I am also quite phobic about cats. I really should have said something, you know, when it first came into the room, earlier, but I didn’t want to interrupt our interview. Anyway, thankfully, everything is fine now.”

“Oh yeah, we’re all perfectly fine,” Rebecca said sarcastically.

“I am so sorry to have barged in here this way, but I was very worried he would fall before you saw him,” the woman from across the street said. She was still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, holding her keys and hugging herself as if she were cold, though she wore a bulky green Irish sweater. “I kept hoping he would find his way back in the open window, but he didn’t go back, he just kept looking in the other window.”

“Six stories,” Rebecca said, kissing the top of his head. “God.”

“Don’t they all land on their feet?” Ruth asked. “I always thought they did.”

“No!” Rebecca, George, and the woman from across the street chorused together.

“Oh,” said Ruth in a small voice. She reached out as if to pet the cat in a conciliatory gesture, and Rebecca turned away with Joe Green to avoid her touch.

“I should go now,” the woman from across the street said, pushing her hands up the opposite sleeves to grip her elbows nervously. “I’m Patricia Dolan, by the way, with the cats, you know, across the street.”

“The girls! Of course. We’re so grateful to you, Patricia,” Rebecca said, kissing the top of Joe Green’s head. “What if you hadn’t been home?”

While they were saying goodbye to Patricia at the door, Ruth had collected her notebook and folders to stow in her satchel. Now she wound the microphone cord of the tape recorder with extra precision and care, and carefully zipped it into a black leatherette pouch before putting that, too, into her briefcase after the tape recorder.