Compass & Quill

Despite my intentions, I’ve somehow managed to adopt another cat. She is a tiny, delicate void kitty, and her name is M. I’m pretty sure that she’s the daughter of the black cat that died in my backyard last month, and perhaps even the sister of the sick stray kitten I found (and sadly had to euthanize) two months ago. I’ve been wondering if she knows those things, for good or bad, and that’s why she showed up at my door.

It was a cool, quiet afternoon. I was in the front yard, humming to myself and watering the volunteer sunflowers that have grown under my birdfeeder. She appeared from out of nowhere: an emaciated black kitten with a voice like an air raid siren. She started yowling at me and just didn’t stop. I could see that her skin was hanging off of her bones. Being me, I dropped the garden hose and went inside to grab food and water.

We have a lot of feral cats in our neighborhood, and the one thing they all have in common is that they’re afraid of humans. Not M. She hung out under my carport for the next few days, fattening up, as I tried to figure out what to do with her. In between my mealtime visits, she’d stand at the living room window and yowl. She tried to dart inside with me more than once. I knew that she needed to come inside, and soon. I decided to take her to the vet to at least get her checked for a microchip, tested for serious diseases, vaccinated, and dewormed. At that point she could come inside and I could work on finding her a home. (Yeah, right.)

Long story short, yesterday marked a week since M was spayed. I have mixed feelings on keeping her, but at this point I’m pretty sure we will. You see, my fiance was smitten with her as soon as she hopped into his lap and leaned in to be petted the first time. She’s clearly a daddy’s girl, and can spot a sucker from a mile away. Lucky her, there are two in this house! My fiance is highly allergic to the cats we already have, so I made it clear that the decision to add one more was all his. His answer? “Well, she’s a cool cat, and we’re cool people, so…”

Surprisingly, she’s fitting in just fine. I had a plan for how we’d gradually introduce everyone and help them remain calm, but it didn’t happen the way I’d imagined. In the end, she insisted on squeezing through the bars of the baby gate and into a room with two dogs and a cat, so I let her go and watched to make sure no one got hurt. Eventually, we practiced with just dogs, and just one cat, and two cats, and three cats, then three cats and two dogs. For the most part, it’s gone far better than I’d expected. Yesterday morning, we were starting on short, supervised visits with two human chaperones. At this very moment, I’m on the couch with two dogs, a cat, and a kitten, all sleeping peacefully.

M is spicy, though. There’s a wildness in her eyes that doesn’t exist in my existing three cat kids – at least not anymore. I’ve had to remind myself that she’s a tiny huntress who finagled her way into my home. She might have asked to live here, but she doesn’t understand our family yet. I watched her today as she watched Munky and Charlie groom each other and curl up together. She looked so curious. It made me wonder if she had the chance to bond with any other cats out there on the street, or if it was a constant lonely fight for survival.

I wonder if she’d still been cuddling with her mother at night up until a point a month ago when her mother stopped coming home. I can’t give her her mom back, but I can give her siblings and a safe spot to land. I owe that much to her. I hope it can be enough.