Dewey's Nine Lives

He didn’t care about my rules. No matter how many times I put him down, he always jumped on the dinner table. He ran back and forth through the drapes, driving himself into a frenzy. Without fail, he chose my best furniture to sharpen his claws on. He chased his tail like a dog. He stared at the TV like a slack-jawed teenager. When I put ice in his water dish to keep it fresh, he fished it out and chased it around the house. Dewey hated water so much, he wouldn’t even drink it. Page never cared about getting soaked. He never cared about being laughed at. Dewey was dignified. He couldn’t stand being the butt of the joke. Page Turner never seemed to mind that I was doubled over laughing at his antics.

Thank goodness, I said to myself, they didn’t try to put this cat in the library. It’s a common misconception that just any old cat can live in a library. Page Turner, although appropriately named, was far too high-strung for the job. He was too distrustful and shy. He didn’t have a quiet dignity about him. He wasn’t Dewey, of course, but he wasn’t Rusty, either. He wasn’t cool. He didn’t have empathy. He wouldn’t rub against you when you were down. His advice, if he could have given any, would have been abysmal I’m sure. But we can’t all be the prime rib on the plate of life, right? Some of us, like Page Turner, have to be the broccoli.

Find your place. That’s one of the lessons Dewey taught me. We all have a place where we will thrive. By the summer of 2009—when the book tours finally slowed and I started to think about writing this book—it was clear that Page Turner had mellowed out and found his place. He had been so unsure and frantic those first few months, I could now see, because life on the street had been hard. He ran from every creak because, I had no doubt, he had been hurt out there. He gulped food because he had been starving. On the day we took him home, I’m not sure he was ready to believe in anyone. But he had trusted Glenn. Just like Rusty, Page Turner could see the gentleness and love in the man’s soul.

Sure, he’s spoiled now. He interrupts our dinner until we give him a few bites to eat. He licks the bottom of the cheese container that comes with my soft pretzel (my nightly vice!). He attacks my feet when I’m trying to sleep, lounges on my keyboard when I’m trying to write, and does nothing on Saturdays but watch NASCAR with Glenn. You may think this is somehow bad for him—unhealthy, unproductive, unnatural, and all the other insults that have been hurled at my treatment of Dewey since that book was published—but I know Page Turner is happy. At six weeks old, he was shivering in the middle of a Spencer street, filthy dirty, with ice clumps and sticks matted in his fur. Now he lives in a house with two people who adore him. He has cat food whenever he wants. He sleeps in a warm bed. He has toys to play with—even the kind with annoying bells!— and a microwave to watch. He hates strangers—I didn’t see him for four days the first time my grandchildren came for a visit—but he has a little hidey-hole behind the suitcases in my closet where he can go whenever he feels afraid. He doesn’t go outside, but in the summer we open a window so he can watch and listen and fantasize about the birds in the garden.

My friends think Page Turner looks like Dewey. I don’t see it. They are both fluffy orange cats, but Page is a different shape (that would be 100 percent round). He’s bigger than Dewey. And although his eyes are changing from green to Dewey’s golden amber, they don’t look anything like Dewey’s eyes. Page is not an old soul. He is not wise. He is an energetic, sometimes naughty, often exasperating klutz. He makes me laugh and shake my head and wonder, What the heck will that cat do next? He’s warm and loving and, let’s face it, he gives Glenn and me something to focus on. Something that’s ours. Together.

I’m not saying Page Turner is the child Glenn always wanted to have around. He’s not even a new version of Rusty, if the truth be known. Rusty was Glenn’s companion when he didn’t want any company. For a while, he was the glue that held Glenn’s life together. But they’ve both moved on. Whenever Glenn visits him now, Rusty looks him over, like he’s checking his old friend’s condition. They meow at each other—yes, Glenn meows—and Rusty hops into Glenn’s arms and mashes his cheek into Glenn’s beard. Then Rusty wanders off to his new life. He’s an easygoing cat, the kind that can be happy almost anywhere, and he’s found his place in Jenny’s home.