The Cat Came Back

I have been assisting my mother for the last two years, since the death of her husband of 53 years. Every week, I go to her house, bring her groceries, do some maintenance, take her wherever she needs to go, that sort of thing. Or we might just sit around in the lounge her husband built for her in the 1980s and chat about whatever comes to mind. I've needed this time with her as much as she needs it with me. She has slowed down through the years, enough that it's now a struggle to stand and move about with her fancy stroller thingy. She has soldiered on, through grief and regret and loneliness, even expressing her surprise that she was the one who survived.

So, one Monday afternoon relaxing in the lounge, my mother tells me about an incident with a stray cat that had decided to plant itself on her back porch. Now, my mother lives out in the country, on the lee side of a mountain, in a sort of no-man's land between three different towns. Their electricity comes from one town, their telephone service from another, the natural gas from yet another. In all, the municipal services come from five different sources. The location is also subject to the heartless habit of people dumping unwanted pets. Mostly dogs, but also the occasional cat. So, my mother and stepfather have had to deal with strange animals hiking across their property over the years. Mom is telling me about a couple of strays that she had spotted behind the house. One in particular had decided he needed the use of her back porch as his personal hangout. Mom is not what you call an animal lover, having never owned a pet, even though she grew up in rural Jackson County and working the fields with her sisters and her mother, she never really took to making friends with the domesticated animals. The audacity of a stray cat occupying her porch was an annoyance Mom wasn't going to abide. So, she slowly arose from her easy chair, grabbed the handles of her stroller and moved over to the glass door facing the porch. In the meanwhile, the cat had settled into a sitting position, staring directly at her as she approached him.

She eventually reached out to the doorknob, and opened the door. The cat sat motionless, his gaze never straying from the sight of the old woman glaring down at him. She told him to go away, scat, scat! The cat looked her straight in the eye, and in a clearly human-sounding voice said, "I love you". Mom was aghast at the sound of this creature daring to speak to her this way. She glared down at the stray and declared, "You can't talk, you're a cat! Cats can't love like people do!" The cat didn't even flinch. Mom tried shooing him away, but he wouldn't go. She eventually went back into the house and did her best to ignore the intruder.

So, this little incident had been on Mom's mind since, as she tried to make sense of it all. She concluded at last that her late husband might have come back to say the words he rarely spoke in life. Joe was never very sentimental, and he didn't say the three words often, instead showing his affection through action. He was a handy man, having spent time as a young man in the construiction business. When Mom complained that there wasn't enough light coming into their relatively new house, Joe defied conventional building methods and engineered a way to give her what she wanted. When she wanted the space between the living room and the dining room opened up, he explained how difficult it would be to accomplish such a task. Eventually, he found a way. He installed short wall sections at both ends to support a large beam that spanned the wide space he made. He decided, on his own, to make an addition to the back of the house, complete with bay windows to get the most available light, as it was facing the north. Later, he added the concrete-floored porch that transitioned from the high setting lounge to the backyard. Many spring days found them sitting and relaxing, watching hummingbirds buzz about and feeding on the sugar water Joe set out for them.

It was this porch that the stray cat had commandeered to conduct its anthropomorphic stunt, putting Mom into a tizzy over impossible cat antics. For weeks, I watched out for a return visit of this enigmatic kitty, but none was in the offing. A few squirrels, the neighbor's dogs, birds all came by as was their instinctive habits, but no stray cat of the description Mom gave me. Then, one Monday afternoon as we lounged, Mom had received a phone call by one of her siblings. She was chatting away, and I was sitting there trying not to eavesdrop. Eventually, I looked towards the glass door to the porch and, to my amazement, I see a cat. Not the one Mom told me about, but a new visitor. This one was hefty, mottled with orange-y splotches across its fur. And he was set firmly right in front of the door, watching me intently. Staring at me with that less-than-wide-eyed look of feline disdain, motionless and unblinking. I wanted to say something to Mom, but she was busy with her phone call. So, instead I looked back at the stray, and I mouthed the words 'don't worry, I'm taking care of her for you'. He just stared back at me for a long time. Well, it was worth a shot.

Eventually, Mom ended her conversation, and I looked over at her for a moment, then noticed the orange cat had disappeared. Just like that, gone. I craned my neck to see where he was, but no trace of him anywhere in sight. Of course. It seemed fitting, and I didn't even bother to tell her about it. I just hoped he was a good lip reader.