Bosco Kitty's Arc

Chapter 3 of 9

Bosco stays outside Bizzy Dee's door until the light changes and the house begins to move again. Footsteps on the stairs. Voices in the kitchen. The refrigerator opening and closing. None of it brings Bizzy Dee out of her room or tells him where she went this morning. The sound of the front door opening pulls him to attention. New footsteps in the hall — heavier than the family's usual pattern. A stranger's gait, measured and deliberate, carrying the sharp smell of antiseptic and vinyl. Bosco rises and moves to the corner where he can see without being seen. The figure carries a polished bag with metal clasps that click softly as it shifts from hand to hand. Everything about this person speaks of institutions — the clean pressed clothes, the neutral expression, the way they move through the house like they have been in many houses just like it. They pause at Bizzy Dee's door, the one with the worn wood grain Bosco has been watching for days, and knock twice before turning the handle. Bosco moves forward, low and fast. The stranger does not look down. The door opens and Bizzy Dee's voice comes through — thin, but awake. The stranger steps inside with the bag and closes the door behind them. The latch clicks. Bosco sits three feet from the wooden panels and listens to the muffled voices. He cannot make out words, but he knows the rhythm. Questions. Answers. The sound of metal instruments. He waits. The bag sits on the floor just outside the door where the stranger set it down before entering. Bosco presses his nose to the gap at the bottom of the door and catches Bizzy Dee's scent — stronger now, present in a way it has not been all morning. She did not leave. She has been in that room the whole time, and now someone from the place with the antiseptic smell is in there with her. Bosco settles onto the floor where he can see both the door and the bag. This is not a stranger he needs to chase away. This is the kind that comes when the sickness smell gets too strong and the pills stop working. He knows now what the calm meant. The fight moved inside the room he cannot enter, and all he can do is mark the threshold and wait for the door to open again.