Downtown Chinook, Annik's Apartment, Late September

    Annik was tired of crying. Her mother had been dead for over a week and all she'd done was cry. Surely she was done with crying. How many tears could one body hold after all. Why hadn't she gone out instead of her mother? It had been her turn to do the shopping but her mother had said she wanted to go. There had been a show she'd wanted to watch so she hadn't argued and let her mother go instead. It had seemed so important to her mother at the time. Now it just felt selfish to have stayed home. If she had gone shopping like she was supposed to, then her mother would still be alive.

    The tears started to flow even harder. Fueled by the accusations bouncing around her brain. If she'd had anyone else to talk to, to help her in her grief, they might have been able to tell her that her feelings were normal, natural. But she had no one. No one to talk to or to grieve with. Annik had never had friends growing up. They had never stayed in any town longer than a year, as a result Annik had never even had an acquaintance. Annik was alone in her grief and tears. She would never hear her mothers beloved voice or see her shy smile. The hands that had comforted and loved her were forever gone.

    Ten days ago there had been a gentle polite knock on her door. It wasn't the respectful knock that had gotten Annik's attention, it was that there had been a knock at all. They had no one that would be knocking. Annik and her mother had no friends to come by to visit. No one that would stop to ask for help or to borrow something. Not even other people that lived in the building were likely to come by. The mother and daughter had never welcomed people getting to know them. Not that they had been rude or anything, the two of them had just made it clear that they would prefer to be left alone. So they only knew the other people in the building to say hi in the elevator and not much more than that.

    Going to the door, Annik had been nervous. It couldn't be her mother, she had a key after all. And if her hands were full she would have kicked the foot plate at the bottom of the door not knocked so politely. The face of the officer when she'd answered the door had confused her. Why was there a cop at her door? She and her mother were very law abiding after all. Well other then the fake ID's that is. And anyone coming for that wouldn't be so polite. No if they were there because of the Id's it would have been ICE assuming that the two of them were illegal aliens. Which ok was probably more than a little true when it came to her mother but Annik had been born here in the states. Here in Washington in fact, which made it a little odd that they had moved here four months ago. Her mother had always said it was too dangerous to live in Washington but would never explain why.

    The gentle voice that asked if she was Annik Johnson had been the first clue that everything in her life had changed forever. She'd started to crumple, never to be held in her mother's loving arms again. Never to see her mother's small, shy smile and loving eyes. She was now alone like she'd never been before. Annik hadn't noticed the cop keeping her from the floor. Nor did she really track any of the conversation that followed. All she could hear was the voice screaming in her head that she was now alone, forever.

    The soft scratching at the door brought a smile to Annik's face through her tears. That wasn't a person at the door. No, it was Wiket, the grey female cat that the building manager owned. Although Annik was fairly certain that if Wiket could talk she'd say that she owned everyone and everything in the building. She went everywhere in the building that she wanted to. Wiket always seemed to show up when Annik or her mother were upset and from what she'd overheard other residents say she would show up if they were too. Annik didn't know how the cat always knew where someone was in their head, she was just glad that she was there for her. Wiket was her only friend now that her mother was dead.

    Annik hurried to open the door for the big grey cat. It didn't do to make her wait, if you did the cat would start to wail. Annik and her mother had found that out the very first day of their residence in the building. The two hadn't heard the soft scratch, they were busy unpacking after all. They sure heard the loud plaintiff yowl that kicked off out of nowhere right outside their door though. They would have needed to be deaf and/or dead to miss that racket. The two of them had run to the door ready to rescue whatever was being tortured just outside. They had opened the door in a rush, convinced that someone was killing an animal on their doorstep. Neither of the women had any experience with cats. If they had they would of known that the deafening sound was from a pissed off cat. Not some animal being sacrificed in front of their door.

    What had greeted them wasn't the bloody mess of a cat that they had expected but rather a very calm and definitely uninjured cat. The huge cat was looking at them expectantly, obviously waiting for them to do something when the door across the hall opened. The two had been worried that they would be blamed for the loud attention getting noise that the cat had made and started to explain that they had done nothing to the cat. The neighbor had merely laughed and explained all about Wiket and her little ways. Wiket seemed to always know if someone was home and didn't accept that she might not be welcome anywhere in the building that she wanted to go into. Closed doors that she wanted through were anathema to her. Wiket didn't take no for an answer and the yowl she let out if she was denied entry was positively mind bending. Wiket, it seemed, excelled at letting all and sundry know when she was displeased. Loudly, with gusto and at the top of her lungs.

    Annik looked around the small studio apartment that she had shared with her mother. She knew she should move. Had promised her mother that if anything had ever happened she would move immediately. Even if it meant that all she would take was the book her mother had told her stories from and the clothes on her back. That was the other thing that her mother had made her promise, that she would always take the story book with her whenever she moved. No matter what, that book had to stay with Annik.

    The studio apartment was one of the better places the the two had lived in throughout Annik's life. Thanks to the owner, the manager was able to keep the place in good repair. The appliances while not brand new were in great working order. The heating and water heater worked a treat so the room and water temp where always what they were supposed to be, hot or cold when you wanted. The neighbors were friendly and well mannered. No loud parties or screaming fights. No drunks or drugs in the hallways, or the apartments as far as Annik could tell. Considering that Annik and her mother had lived with all of those things in the past was one of the reasons that she was so reluctant to move. Added to that was the fact that Annik was barely functioning at all. Thanks to the grief she was feeling it took all of her energy to get herself out of bed and to work. Anything other then basic tasks and it was too much. She had a hard enough time just keeping herself from breaking down in tears. Looking for a new place to live? In a new city and state? Just too much. There was no way she could deal with that as well. So there was a good dab of guilt added to the grief because she wasn't keeping her word to her mother.

   The building manager had mentioned when they moved in that it was ok to paint the walls as long as they were back to white when they moved out. Annik had convinced her mother to do just that. As a result the kitchen was a nice hungry mustard color. The bathroom was a soft blue color and the everything else room was a gentle, warm yellow. The drapes that they had bought to go over the blinds that came with the apartment completed the look. They had done such a great job with the painting and color choices that the manager had told them to leave it painted if they moved out. And had even offered to pay them to paint the rest of the units as they became empty. An offer that they were happy to take as long as they were living there.

    Everything that the pair owned was from one second hand store or another.  The little table that they ate on was just barely big enough for them to eat together. The dresser that they kept their clothes in had nicknacks on top of it that made the neat as a pin apartment look homey. They had even shared their clothes since they had been the same size. Before her death Ingretta had looked to be only in her mid twenties instead of the forties that Annik had known her mother to be. The one wardrobe hadn't been a problem for her mother. Annik however, had only looked to be in her early to mid teens not the almost twenty-five that she actually was. Annik often wondered if she would ever look like an adult rather than a teenager. Her mother got carded a lot but Annik was often accused of having a fake ID. Which, ok to be fair, was true. But it wasn't her age that was the lie, it was the name that had been faked. How her mother had learned how to get the fake ID's Annik had never found out but thanks to her mother Annik knew how to as well.

    Annik was so happy to see her only comfort, Wiket. She didn't want to admit to even herself how much she needed the comfort of another living thing. Annik sat down on the futon that she and her mother had slept together on. Wiket immediately took the invite and jumped up into her lap, purring like a chainsaw. The tears that had started before Wiket had come to her door fell even harder, leaving damp spots on the cats fur. Not that Wiket seemed to notice or care. Nope the cat was solely focused on Annik, raising up to put her feet on her shoulders and rubbing her face against Annik's. Annik wrapped her arms around the purring bundle and buried her face into the cat's fur. The fact that Wiket allowed this was proof that the cat knew just how upset she was. As a rule Wiket wasn't fond of being held. Sitting in laps? Yes definitely. Arms around her or otherwise impeding her ability to move? Not so much. The fact that she hadn't turned buzz-saw and shredded her showed just how much the cat loved her. At least that was how Annik saw it.

    Annik didn't want to think about being alone, being friendless. How lame was it that the only friend that she'd ever had, apart from her now dead mother, was a cat. A cat that she didn't even own to make it even more pathetic and lame. Her mother had never said why they had to hide but Annik figured that they were running from her father. Thanks to all the moving Annik had been home-schooled. She had never gone to regular school and hadn't even made friends with the other kids in what ever building they were living in.  Her mother had always seemed nervous about people. Always keeping a polite but definite distance between the two of them and the rest of the world. So no getting to know the neighbors. Talking to the neighbors was only the most superficial, in the elevator kind.

    No kids over to play or visit. Not even borrowing cups of whatever from anyone. There was always a divide that her mother maintained. Keeping the rest of the world away from them like it was diseased in some way. Only running from an abusive ex would cause that kind of behavior. At least in Annik's admittedly limited experience, most of which she had gained from watching T.V. whenever they had owned one, or from books borrowed from public libraries. Yet again Annik wished that she had someone, anyone to talk to. Well, she had the cat but that wasn't really the same. For one thing Wiket wasn't actually her cat, no matter how she acted. For another, Wiket was a cat not a person and as such didn't talk per se. Even if she did seem to answer sometimes. Something that Annik was certain was just her anthropomorphizing Wiket's behavior so she didn't feel so alone.

    It was odd to her, this feeling alone. Even though she'd never had any friends Annik could never remember feeling alone. Before her mother's death Annik had always had her and so had not felt alone or lonely. It wasn't until the death in fact that Annik realized that her mother was all she'd had and that now she had no one. Nothing was ever going to be the same. Annik knew that she should move to a new state like she'd promised her mother she would do, changing her last name when she moved like they always had. But she just couldn't do it, she couldn't make herself leave the last place that she and her mother had been together. As hard as the memories were in the tiny studio, the thought of not being where if she squinted just right she could almost see her mother was far, far worse. She couldn't make herself leave the apartment they had shared much less the city they had lived in. There was no leaving Chinook now, maybe not ever.  After all, she told herself everytime she felt guilty about not following her mothers wish, they had been on the move from whoever her mother was running from since before Annik had been born. It was beyond unlikely that whoever it was knew of her existence much less what she looked like.

    "Oh momma," she wailed into Wiket's fur. "I'm sorry but I can't keep my promise to you. I just can't leave you." Annik felt terrible about not keeping her promise to her mother but still she wouldn't, couldn't make herself leave. "I've been running my whole life for God's sake. When do I get to stop? I'm so tired of running. Maybe I can stop now. It's not like they were looking for me. No they were looking for you mom, not me." For a few minutes Annik considered what it would be like to have friends, a life that didn't involve moving every year. It was almost impossible to contemplate as she had never had a friend before. In fact Wiket was the closest thing she'd ever had to a friend. And wasn't that a sad statement to make about herself and her life.

    After a while, when her tears had finally stopped flowing, Annik lifted her head from where it had been nestled in the cat's grey fur. Glancing at the clock Annik groaned. It was time to get ready for work. Usually, before her mothers death, that had meant changing her clothes. Today however, like most days since her mothers death, would require her doing something about the mess she'd turned into thanks to the crying spell. Her eyes were red and her nose was running, so she definitely needed to do something before she could be seen in public by anyone. She wasn't fit to be seen in public much less at work the way she was now. Some people could cry and not be a terrible mess. Annik however was most definitely not one of them. Annik knew she wasn't a pretty crier. In fact, the opposite was true. Annik wasn't just an ugly crier, she was a very ugly crier. So she was definitely not going out in public after a crying jag and definitely not to work.

    Looking around the studio that she had once shared with her mother and now lived in alone, Annik wished that she had a connection, any connection to other people. She wished that she was able to make friends. Work friends didn't count, those were just people that you were nice to if they were nice to you but you never had any contact with away from work. Annik wasn't sure if they even counted as acquaintances. It wasn't like you went out and tried to meet people to interact with. No the only reason you were even on their radar was if you failed to do some task or other while you were working with them. And regretfully the reverse was the only reason they were on your radar as well.

    Pushing those thoughts away Annik got up and got herself ready for work. Washing her face, brushing her teeth, and fixing her make-up got her centered and better able to function, at least superficially. Grabbing the backpack that she kept her work clothes in Annik headed out. As much as she wished that she could take time off to grieve, there were bills to pay so off to work she went even if she was dying inside. The world didn't stop just because you were in pain after all.