“I really meant to go see him again,” Anna admitted emphatically, sitting on the couch next to her only companion in the entire city—Cheshire, her two-year-old cat. “I'd heard he hadn't been well, but you just never expect it to happen, do you?” she queried, sniffling back tears, knowing that in all their two years together, Cheshire hadn't answered her once, no matter how important the question she'd posited.
But who else was she supposed to talk to? Her mother was no doubt off gallivanting around the country with her latest love interest. “What was this, husband number seven?” she guessed. And Anna had been so absorbed in her college studies back in New York that she hadn't made any significant friendships there. She'd only just moved into her apartment two weeks ago after accepting a job offer in a new city and now that her grandfather had passed away suddenly, there was nobody left in the world to listen to her.
Resisting the urge to feel sorry for herself, Anna
