Love Saves the Day

Having the littermates here one day a week is more disruptive than it was having Josh around five days a week after he first lost his job. They have a hard time doing the sensible things cats (and older humans) do, like sitting in one spot for stretches of time, thinking important thoughts, and watching Upper West Side through our windows. Their constant movements disturb the air around me and make my whiskers tickle. And they always fight with me for my favorite napping spot on the couch. Josh and Laura have learned that a cat’s preferred sleep area is her own property and should be respected. But the littermates will plop themselves down on my spot even if I’m already sleeping there, which means I have to wake up from wonderful dreams of green grass and Sarah’s singing so I can scramble away from their lowering backsides before I get squashed. Even when I chuff and growl at them, they ignore me. You’d think that such young humans would be grateful to have a cat instructing them in proper manners. But never once have they said to me, Thank you, Prudence, for trying to teach us how to be polite. If it weren’t for the lure of rustling papers in Home Office whenever they’re here, I would stay away from them all the time.

They’re better behaved with Josh, though. Maybe that’s because he’s so patient and gentle with them, the way Sarah always is with me. (Although I’m more deserving of gentle patience than the littermates.) If they’re sitting at the little table in Josh’s office, they’ll even raise one hand in the air before asking him questions. I think this must be a good-manners thing that gets taught to young humans. It’s surprising to me that the littermates have been able to learn anything that’s good manners. But I’ve never seen any fully grown humans put their hands up before asking something, so obviously somebody trained the littermates to do this.

“Uncle Josh,” Robert asks with his hand in the air, “how come the people who live in the apartment building have to move away?”

“They don’t have to—yet,” Josh tells him. “There are rules that say how much money the people who own the building are allowed to charge people for living there. Now they want to change the rules and make the building so expensive that the people who live there won’t be able to afford it anymore.”

“That’s what happened to us.” Abbie’s face looks solemn. “When Mom and Dad got a divorce, we couldn’t afford to live in our house near Nana and Pop-pop anymore. We had to come live in an apartment because Dad stopped giving Mom money.”

Josh is putting some papers into a creamy-colored folder, but his hand freezes, the way a cat freezes when she spots something she’s going to pounce on. He looks so wary that I think maybe a mouse managed to find a hiding spot in those papers after all, and I peer around from my spot next to Robert’s chair, checking to make sure I didn’t miss a threat. “Who told you that about your father?” Josh asks Abbie quietly.

The littermates look at each other. Then Abbie says, “Sometimes we hear Mom on the phone, even though she has the door to her room closed.” Robert’s eyes get big and round, like he’s scared of what Abbie just said. “We don’t try to listen,” she says quickly. “It’s just sometimes we can’t help it.”

Josh’s eyes turn sad and also angry. But his voice is kind when he tells her, “You and Robert are lucky that your mom was able to find a good job, and that you have Nana and Pop-pop, and Aunt Laura and me, to help her make sure you won’t ever have to move away again. But the people who live in this apartment building already have so little money, they wouldn’t be able to afford a nice apartment if they had to move. And they’ve been living in their apartments a long, long time. Some of them have been living there since even before I was born.” Abbie’s and Robert’s eyes grow bigger, as if they can’t begin to imagine how long ago that must have been.

“Do any of the people who live there have cats like Prudence?” Robert wants to know.

“A few of them do,” Josh says, smiling. “They’re worried that if they have to move, they might not be able to find a new apartment building that would let them bring their cats with them.”

Well! Imagine that! What kind of crazy apartment building wouldn’t want cats living there? Who would protect them from all the mice and rats if there weren’t any cats? Good luck finding a dog to do that as smartly and thoroughly as a cat can! Just when I think I’ve heard all the ridiculous things humans can do and say, I hear something else that makes me realize there’s no limit to how foolish humans can be.