An Unexpected Addition
"Are you in Anchorage?" Aubrey's text read.
"I am. What's up?" I replied.
"I just wanted to stop by and say ‘hi’." she wrote.
I knew right then something was off. Of the four times when Aubrey has come to see me at the airport, three of them were to talk about the foster kids and once to talk about Alastor.
I walked across the hockey rink of a parking lot with trepidation. As soon as I saw the old, blue Honda, I could see a white box in Aubrey's lap. I cautiously slid across the ice and sat down inside the car.
With a mischievous grin, Aubrey opened the box. A tiny orange cat popped its head out.
I had been unenthusiastic about the prospect of taking on additional responsibility and, specifically, adopting another cat. Less than a year ago, my cat Alastor died*. The loss tore my heart and made me feel like adopting another cat would mean I was betraying Alastor; like I was trying to replace him. Because of this, I refused to even visit the animal shelter.
Aubrey was no less wounded by the loss but she seems to have a heart incapable of limitation. So, she has spent the last several months on a gentle, but relentless campaign to adopt another cat. I eventually offered the compromise of allowing us to keep any cat doled out by the Cat Distribution System, that is to say: I wouldn't turn down a stray that came willingly to our home. I took comfort in the fact that strays are rare at -20°F.
Back in the car, no such luck had been on my side.
"Who is this?" I asked as I reached for the ball of fur.
"She doesn't have a name yet," Aubrey said.
Pulling the cat into my lap, I realized that most of her slight figure was fur. Long, cozy locks of orange floof and an extravagant tail. Beneath her luxurious coat, she couldn't have been more than the size of a Nalgene bottle.
"How old is she?" I asked.
"A year and a half," Aubrey said.
"She's not a kitten?"
"Nope. she's fully grown."
"What does Kelly (our landlady) think?" I asked as Orange Cat curled into my heavy coat and began purring.
"Just a small monthly pet fee," Aubrey said.
"Hmph," I said.
In the day and a half that Orange Cat has lived with us, she has selected the kids' room as her private fort. Sam now feeds her and has been remarkably measured and delicate in his interactions with her.
When I brought her out to introduce her to the dogs today, she hissed once for each canine, then curled up in my lap. Since then, she has made two trips out of her fort to get pets from us.
I still miss Alastor deeply. But, being on this side of cat adoption, it doesn’t feel like a betrayal to love Orange Cat as well.
*Alastor’s story is here, on my other blog, Tales from the Road.