Carolyn Fay

Arletta’s hands stiffened like claws and she dropped another gosh darn stitch. She threw the knitting down. The needles clattered like bones on the hearthstone. If Betty Alvarez could knit with fingers thick as sausages, surely Arletta could knit with the gosh darn arthritis. Betty had said it was important. Hats for preemies at the hospital.

“I’ve knit five already.” Arletta had begged off, but Betty thrust yarn and needles into her arms.

“Arletta, you need something in your life besides feeding stray animals.” 

Maybe so. Firelight gleamed through the half-knit hat. When it was finished, she’d sew a label in it. “Made with love by Arletta.” 

The clock struck five. Arletta got up, coaxed her feet into tall, mud-caked boots, and stepped outside. Time to feed the critters.   

There hadn’t always been so many. Birds and squirrels. Deer prancing at dusk. They devoured the seeds, nuts, and corn she scattered in the yard. Her all-you-can-eat buffet ticked the neighbors off something fierce because the deer chewed their fancypants hostas, but the way she figured it, all God’s critters gotta eat.    

Arletta weaved around the yard, filling feeders and food troughs. Raccoon eyes flashed in the dusky gray. Melon rinds for them. The groundhogs would get carrot greens. 

Mealworms for the foxes. Flies for the bats. 

Stray cats slunk out of the shadows. They trailed her like smoke until she scraped some chopped liver into their bowls. She listened as they licked and lapped. She loved it when the critters enjoyed their meals.    

The coyote was looking sluggish. Probably still digesting yesterday’s dinner.

How Betty had stared at the coyote, lips pursed. She’d come uninvited with a bag full of yarn and a mouth full of opinions about how Arletta should get out more, find a purpose. Knit hats. 

Arletta scooped a cupful of grubs for the skunk. The plastic cup was just the size of the hat she was trying to finish. She cradled the cup in her palm. Such a little thing. A hat. A purpose. 

She tipped the cup over. The grubs fell in a mound, writhing and crawling all over one another as the skunk pushed her soft black snout into them. 

She had to finish that gosh darn hat. Then knit another and another. Each one a purpose.  She lined them up on a shelf in her mind. If only she could get her fingers to behave. 

The opossum had gnawed on Betty’s fingers for days. Thick as sausages. How had she kept her stitches so neat? 

Arletta dished up the last of the brains for the chipmunks. Maybe Betty had lied about knitting five hats. Arletta dug in the freezer chest for blood ice cubes for the mountain lion. The little cats mewled as though they hadn’t already had their supper.  

“Everybody wants to be important,” she said to the cats.

Everything Arletta did for the critters was important. She’d shown Betty. The food bins. The freezer stocked with blood ice and popsicles. The cold storage room filled with hanging carcasses. Only Betty hadn’t said a word. Not a gosh darn word as her eyes rounded like O’s, rounded like her big lipsticked-mouth that screamed and screamed. She hollered the dogs to barking, the wolves to howling, the birds to screeching. All God’s critters beat and flapped and growled. Arletta shook so bad her vision blurred. Her fingers stiffened like claws. Like gosh darn claws around Betty’s neck. 

Now the cold of the blood ice cube bit into her palm. She sat down hard on an overturned bucket.

All that remained of Betty was the half-finished preemie hat. Arletta might as well admit it. She’d never finish that gosh darn hat. Not with her stiff, achy fingers.

The blood ice cube slickened in her hand. She dropped it onto the ground. The cats sniffed the cube, batted at it, like it was a stunned bird. 

A question snagged in her mind. Was Betty Alvarez any different from a stray critter?  She’d swaggered into the yard with her arms full of knitting to give Arletta a purpose. Arletta had taken it. Shaken it out of her. 

But hadn’t she given Betty something back? A new purpose. The highest purpose. To be needed. Loved.

The cats licked Betty’s frozen blood. 

Betty was important. 

Arletta sat on the bucket as dusk deepened to dark. The bats flew off. The skunk snuffled away. The mountain lion padded into the woods and the little cats melted into the black. One by one, the night absorbed the critters. She knew that one day, she, too, would be absorbed into the darkness.

She tramped back inside and threw Betty’s knitting into the fire. The half-finished hat came to life for a moment, sparking, jumping, glowing orange before it dissolved into a blackened lump. She rubbed her achy hands over the misplaced purpose, letting the warmth seep into her skin, loosen her stiff joints, fill her with love. With gosh darn love.

About the Author

Carolyn Fay is a writer and teacher currently based in Charlottesville, VA. Her short works of fiction have appeared in Orca and Dime Show Review.