I grabbed my phone and sent him a text:

What the hell are you doing over there?

Taking apart my headboard.

Ah! No wonder. I was having flashbacks.

His response was to bang on his wall again. I banged back.

Bang ba ba bang bang.

Bang bang.

I giggled, then listened. Would he . . . ? Sure enough, a moment later, Glen Miller came through the walls. Smooth.

I went back to packing, and he went back to taking apart his headboard. Clive attacked a roll of bubble wrap and made it his bitch. A few hours later, we met back in my apartment and looked around at the tiny dent I’d made in getting things ready to be moved.

“When is the storage container coming again?”

“Two days.” I looked in my calendar to verify the date. “So you need to make sure anything you don’t want in the container is already moved out before the crew gets here. They’re taking care of everything else.” It was still weird to think about the new house. I almost couldn’t, with everything going on. One step at a time.

“We still staying here tonight?” he asked, peering over my shoulder at the calendar.

“I’d like to, if that’s still cool with you. One more night, where it all began? Besides, I went to the trouble of bringing my pu**y,” I joked.

As if on cue, Clive ran through the kitchen and back out again like the hounds of hell were on his tail, towing a large piece of bubble wrap that streamed out behind him like a crinkly-sounding cape.

“You know I can’t resist that,” he murmured in my ear, arms sneaking around my waist. “By the way, you can erase that trip.”

“What trip?” I asked, my voice all gooey. His arms did that to me.

“The one to Belize. I canceled it,” he said, pointing to a date I had circled on my calendar.

“You canceled Belize?” I asked. That was three trips in a row.

“Yep, I wanted to be here to help with the house.” He nuzzled my neck. “I’m pretty handy with a hammer, if you’ll recall.” He bumped his hips into mine.

I bumped them right back. A little harder than was necessary?

Maybe. A little.

“I’m gonna go make sure I got everything in my room,” I said, shrugging him off and heading back to my bedroom. I knew he didn’t like it much when I questioned his schedule. And if he noticed that my voice was no longer gooey, he didn’t say anything.

Pickle.

• • •

Every single one of my worlds collided on the same day. Friday dawned cold and clear. It was a good thing there was no fog, because the fog in my head by noon was enough for the entire Bay Area. Jillian and Benjamin were due in on a six o’clock plane. We wanted them to be able to enjoy their first night back without us hanging around, so when I left for work Friday morning I made sure everything was spick-and-span, with everything exactly how they’d left it.

Simon was closing on the new house at two thirty. He’d be signing the paperwork and picking up the keys, and I told him I’d meet him at our new address as soon as I could get away from work. Utilities were being turned on, we had a truckload of essential boxes being delivered, and Simon was in charge of buying and setting up our blow-up bed. Yep, a blow-up bed. Since we’d be living on the premises while our new home was renovated, we didn’t want any real furniture there. Didn’t want to have to keep moving it as we worked through the rooms, so we were living basic for a while.

Shit was about to get real. Really real.

Poor Clive didn’t know what was going on. After moving from Jillian’s house, back to the apartment, back to Jillian’s, back to the apartment, he barely knew where his litter box was. Luckily, the Stanford sweatshirt was long gone.

Uncle Euan and Uncle Antonio had chosen to move out of our building when it went condo, so my cat sitters were gone. I didn’t want Clive at the new house until I’d had time to kitty proof it, so off he went to kitty day care.

I felt like the shittiest mommy on the planet. And Simon’s feelings on the matter were not helping.

My veterinarian had recommended this great pet hotel. I say hotel, because this was not your average boarding place. He had his own room, with his own flat-screen TV playing hummingbird  p**n  24/7.

“It’s just temporary. I promise, sweetie.” When we went to tour the place I’d brought Clive along, and he and Simon looked around with the same expression.

Are you kidding me?

“We can’t leave him here, this place is ridiculous!” Simon whispered as we walked down the row of kitty rooms.

“This place is great. Don’t you be ridiculous,” I whispered right back as we followed the owner down the hallway.

“And this will be Clyde’s suite!” she sang out, opening the door onto the cutest little room I’d ever seen.

“It’s Clive. Not Clyde; Clive.” Simon sighed, rolling his eyes at me. My eyes told him to shut up. I took Clive from him, setting him down to get the lay of the land. He looked around, scratched at one of the posts, and looked back at me. “Where’s my window ledge?” he wordlessly asked.

These two. Honestly.

Simon and I argued about it on the way home. Clive sat regally on the console between us in the Range Rover, hind legs tucked into the cup holders. The pet hotel was a little cheesy but it was great. And it was a means to an end. It would only be for a few days while we got a feel for the new space. I’d been with Clive much longer than Simon, and I knew if there was one loose floorboard, one cupboard with a wonky door, he’d go exploring and it’d be impossible to find him later. Simon protested that I was being ridiculous and a control freak.

I simply wanted to kitty proof the joint. That’s it. And in order to do so, my cat had to spend a few nights in an overpriced pet hotel with room service. The way Clive and Simon were acting, you’d think I’d suggested he spend a few nights on Alcatraz.

But here we were, moving day, and Simon had finally agreed it was in Clive’s best interests, as well as his own, to take him to the pet hotel before closing on the house. I’d kissed them both that morning, telling Clive to enjoy his adventure. He arranged his paw in a way that one of his little kitty fingers was sticking straight up. Not an accident, I’m quite sure.

I planned on working through lunch that day, trying to get everything pulled together so that when Jillian came back to work on Monday, it would be like she’d never left. No, better than when she left. I really wanted her to know how seriously I’d taken running her business while she was gone, even bringing in a few new clients while taking care of our existing ones. And mentoring a new intern with the same patience and guidance that she’d given me when I walked through those doors for the first time.