A Fluffy Friend

The basement was always cold. New England winters weren’t often kind, and the concrete of the foundation felt like ice between the toes. We had central heating of course, but not enough to warm the concrete, and it was often slow to come on if the rest of the house was warm.

In the basement lay my bedroom, which was arguably the best bedroom in the house. It was one of the largest and was fit with its own bathroom and study. Removed from the rest of the house, it was the perfect place to spend angsty teenage years. And the cold was not too bad after my mom provided me with a space heater that I could sit beside as I did my homework.

But the basement did not only belong to me. Its other inhabitant was a large fluffy white cat, who was by all accounts antisocial and unfriendly, perhaps due to the rest of us dubbing her “Fat Livy.” As predicted by her nickname, Olivia was a large ball of fluff with tiny legs, and she was in fact fat, but perhaps not so obese as to earn the nickname. When my brother’s new girlfriend declared she hated Olivia, the gremlin found her way to my mom’s house and into my bedroom. As my mom had other cats who hated her, Olivia was confined to the chilly basement with only me for company.

At first, it was a harmonious relationship in that we ignored each other completely. My every attempt to pet her or be friendly led to her scurrying away to a corner. So I decided to let her be and hope that she would warm up to me. I would sit by the space heater and do my homework and let her roam.

When I was younger, I had dreamed of sitting by the fireplace as a family and letting the merriness of the holidays spread over us. But families splinter all too often. Parents split. Older siblings move away. My dream of the fireplace began to appear foolish and distant, the wish of a child.

Instead, I found that feeling of togetherness by the hearth when Livy began to warm to my presence. It was gradual though hindsight makes it appear sudden. At first she was simply more willing to let me pet her. Then she began to weave in between my legs as I worked. I thought she simply might have been cold, and perhaps that was all it was, but it meant more to me than that.

Whatever her original intentions were didn’t matter in the end. Perhaps it started as a way for her to be close to the space heater and body heat, but we grew to find companionship in each other. She was the first cat to ever sit in my lap. All of our other cats had always been outdoorsy or hunters, and they showed affection in different ways. But Liv would sit on my lap and purr as I did my homework as if she had always been my cat and never my brother’s.

It was to my great selfish joy that Liv didn’t like anyone else. Although she would sit on my lap and beg me to pet her for hours, she ran away from my mom and my sister. It cemented in me that we had a special bond that no one could replicate even though I would have to win back her affections after spending the weekend at my dad’s.

Memory has blurred the edges around this period, and I’m not sure how long we had our time together by the space heater. Perhaps it was only for a winter. Eventually, my brother found her a new home, and she was renamed Bianca in another family’s life. Our time by the hearth came to an end, and I did my homework alone, covered in blankets with the space heater warming my legs. At first, her absence felt jarring. But college apps were too close on the horizon to be able to fret about anything for too long. I readjusted to how life had been before she was plopped into my basement bedroom, skittish and unfriendly.

I still think of her at times though I know she likely doesn’t remember me. I hope that her new family treats her better than we did, confined to the coldest floor of the house so that the other cats couldn’t harass her. Whenever I think of her, I can almost feel the heat of the space heater against my legs. The memory of warmth persists.