A Cat's Tale (I know it's cornball, but I can't help myself)

We moved to B-town with our old friend Trevor, who had been our feline companion for almost eight years. The first week was quite hard on him, unable to understand our new joint, and why he couldn't go outside. In the first 10 days it was a flurry of moving, unpacking, and leaving him alone in this strange new place. And I would soon be taking him to the vet. He was always well cared for but was, after all, a country indoor/outdoor cat and while he stayed out of the way during the few weeks before the move I noticed things. He was itching his ears a lot, and needed a rabies update. I declined to tell him of his upcoming visit, but I think he knew, as I am certain he understands human language.

Trevor is the most cool, social, and closeted-clever cat I have ever known. In my experience he liked all humans and all animals - even a goat we once owned. And he's stealthy and sly. But in a way you never suspect. He apparently watched in that patient and seemingly unconcerned way he possessed as Danger would occasionally open our bedroom window just a crack (those who installed the screen on the window did so on the wrong side, so he wouldn't open it far). Trevor soon learned to leap to the dresser then slightly to the side to the window ledge then use his surprising strength to slide the window further and squeeze through to freedom. The first time we discovered this we searched in a panic - first the busy street beside our building, then in the forested patches that surrounded us. Coming home feeling helpless and distraught we were surprised to find him lying just outside the same window (it is at ground height as ours is a partial basement apartment) grooming himself and lazily blinking his eyes at us as if we were idiots. Because we were. Because we let it happen again. And searched in a panic. And found him again returned and outside the window, sleeping in a spot of ground warmed and lit by the afternoon sun.

When it happened the third time is when we realized the window didn't latch well, and that Trevor had discovered this before us, as well as how to dig his muzzle under the window blinds, lift them, and execute his escape for a late afternoon stroll. I was recovering from a badly burned arm (a ridiculous stove top mishap) and didn't realize he was gone until dark. Danger came home from work then at my insistence went in search, coming back with sorry news and empty arms. "He'll come back," he said. I knew that he would have done so already, and that he probably wouldn't appear outside the window again. I was in no shape to do so, but went lurching in the dark up and down the street in my pain-pill haze, in oversized and mismatched baggy clothing with right arm extended due to bandaging. Some gave me funny looks, but Halloween was nigh, so they were likely just judging what they assumed was my costume and performance. The only place I did not visit was the one place where I should have entered regardless of my apprehension of making a spectacle of myself.

I posted on Facebook. I called animal control and reported him lost. I described him down to the point that he was without a tail (result of an injury from an encounter with an unknown something in the Wynoose Bottoms). I called back every day for the first week. Then every other day for the second week. At the end of that week I called at a moment of feeling sick and frustrated with his loss and my injury and had a slight meltdown on the phone with the volunteer. Amidst my blubbering she said she was doing a more in-depth search of call-ins of found animals. "Here's one that sorta sounds like your Trevor, but says it has a bobbed tail," she said. "May not be him, but could be worth a call."

I was at once ecstatic and annoyed. I would definitely have associated the two calls, but realize such a place must get hundreds of reports. I called the number, told the woman on the other end who I was and that I thought she might have my Trevor. She was suspicious, and a bit accusatory. I understood that, actually, as I would have wondered why anyone would allow their pet to roam free in a city. I felt nauseous when she said she had reported him "found" the day after I reported him "lost." She needed proof. I described another, and previously undisclosed, feature of Trevor - the white fur that looks like "tear tracks" running from his inner eyes to his mouth. I emailed a photo

Trev receiving bling treatment from Sprout

of he with Sprout. She texted me, saying he was obviously my cat. I assured her I would compensate her for vet visits and other accommodations. She replied that she was unconcerned about the money, and understood how it felt to lose a beloved pet. But, she added, if I was to retrieve him she hoped I would do so soon before her children became even more attached. They were already attached, it seems, and he had adapted to them very quickly. Of course he did. He's that kind of cat. She sent photos of him looking completely content in his new digs. Unfaithful tramp.

Then she dropped the bomb. She lived outside of the city on acres of countryside. He would be loved and well cared and after some time acclimating, would be free to roam.

What would you have done?

So I cried myself to sleep and then emailed her my decision to allow him to be the new member of her fur family. I went for a walk that night, slinking around the place where I'm told he was found - the one establishment I did not enter the evening he didn't come home. A realization struck me, and made me cry again. It looks like our back deck in the Wynoose Bottoms. Awash with twinkling fairy lights. He probably thought he was home, though a bit confused as to where it was now located. The kind woman who took him home that night said a worker there reported he had visited before. She found him lying out there looking right at home. He was probably waiting for me to walk out the back door and sit with him. Maybe he thought she could be me - not impossible to believe when one considers very poor lighting, how often I change the color and cut of my hair and that I can also shed or throw on 20 pounds in a few months time like so many bags of sugar (which is likely what those pounds consist of).

So Trevor became Boris.

I was pretty bummed for a while, but kept trying to rebound by telling the big-baby-me of the selflessness of the adult-me's decision. I would puff up momentarily with martyred swagger. Whatever.

As time went by the loss became less raw. Danger talked of getting a little dog. Another cat? No, I said. No animal could replace Trevor. And that's true to this day. But then a friend sent pics of kittens and there was one that was looking at the camera, and I knew she was meant for me. Maggie Mae came to us at six weeks and wasn't afraid of anything. She fell in love with a stuffed lion from my son's teenage days, and hugged and attacked it in the true fashion that love dictates.

She slept on my chest and touched my face with her soft, fuzzy little paw, looking at me with adoring eyes while her purrs vibrated against my sternum. If you're not a cat person you will roll your eyes. It's just a cat, geeeeeeeeeze.  If you are a cat person, you get it.

Danger taught her to play fetch with little, fuzzy jingle-bell balls. She's torn things up, inflicted me with woeful scratch wounds, and played musical litter box for a couple months. She at first loved Sprout and followed her around only to start hissing at her, and now just gives her "the look." Sprout calls her Grouchy Maggie. On the other hand, she loves men. Hussy. In other words, she's a cat.

I bet Trevor, I mean Boris, would like her.

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