Page 68 - The Midnight Library
P. 68
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Nora scrunched her nose and gave a minute shake of her head. She
remembered the feeling of being suffocated by so much regret . ‘No.’
‘What about your cat? What was his name again?’
‘Voltaire. It was a bit pretentious, and he wasn’t really a pretentious cat, so
I just called him Volts for short. Sometimes Voltsy, if I was feeling jovial.
Which was rare, obviously. I couldn’t even finalise a name for a cat.’
‘Well, you said you were bad at having a cat. What would you have done
differently?’
Nora thought. She had the ver y real sense that Mrs Elm was playing some
kind of game with her, but she also wanted to see her cat again, and not
simply a cat with the same name. In fact, she wanted it more than anything.
‘Okay. I’d like to see the life where I kept Voltaire indoors. My Voltaire. I’d
like the life where I didn’t tr y and kill myself and where I was a good cat
owner and I didn’t let him out onto the road last night. I’d like that life, just
for a little while. at life exists, doesn’t it?’
