Silent Paws

I have been alive for eleven years, and for six of them I have lived in this house with a woman who talks to me as if I understand every word. I do. That's the problem.

Her name is Margaret, but she calls herself Maggie, and she calls me Cat, which is not a name. It's a category. Like calling a person Human. But I answer to it because what else am I going to do? Refuse? I tried that once. She cried. I'm not made of stone.

This morning she's crying again, but not because of me. She's at the kitchen table with a letter in her hand, and the letter is from the bank, and the bank wants the house. I know this because I can read. I can also do long division, though I've never found a use for it. The letter says she has thirty days. She's been reading it for twenty.

The sun comes through the window over the sink and lands on the floor in a shape I've memorized. I sit in the middle of it. Warmth is warmth. I'm not going to pretend I don't enjoy it just because she's upset.

"I don't know what to do," she says. "I don't know what to do, Cat."

I look at her. She looks at me. Her eyes are red and wet and she's wearing the same bathrobe she's worn for three days. It's blue. It used to be softer. Now it's just blue.

Here's the thing about being a cat. Everyone assumes you don't care. They think you sleep all day because you're lazy. They think you knock things off tables because you're a jerk. They think you bring dead birds to the doorstep because you're cruel.

I bring dead birds to the doorstep because I'm trying to help. I'm trying to say: look, I went out into the world and I killed something and I brought it back for you. That's love. That's provision. She doesn't see it that way. She screams. She gets the broom. She throws the bird in the trash and washes her hands for a full minute.

But she keeps me. So who's the fool?

Margaret works at a library. She shelves books. She's good at it. She's been there fourteen years and she makes almost nothing and she has a bad hip and she never married and her sister lives in Arizona and calls on Sundays. I know all this because I listen. I listen to everything. The phone calls. The television. The sounds she makes when she's alone and thinks no one's around.

She doesn't know I can read. She thinks I just like sitting on books. I do like sitting on books. They're warm and flat and they smell like paper and dust. But I also read them. Slowly. One word at a time. I've read most of what's in the house. The novels are better than the self-help. The self-help is garbage. "You are enough," the books say. If that were true, there wouldn't be a market for the books.

The letter from the bank is on the table. I've read it four times. The bank is called First Meridian and they've owned the mortgage for eleven years and they've decided they want it back. All of it. In thirty days. Margaret makes eighteen thousand dollars a year. She owes one hundred and forty thousand. I can do the math. I've done the math. It doesn't work.

She gets up from the table and pours coffee and doesn't drink it. She stands at the counter with her back to me and her shoulders shake. I stay in the sun. Not because I'm heartless. Because there's nothing I can do. I'm a cat. I can't get a job. I can't call the bank. I can't sell the house. I can't do anything except sit here and be warm and watch her fall apart.

This is the part where you're supposed to feel sorry for me. Don't. I have it easy. I eat when I'm hungry. I sleep when I'm tired. I don't have to pay for anything. The only price is that I can't change anything. I can't fix anything. I can only watch.

I've been watching for six years. I watched her husband leave. I watched her mother die. I watched her get the hip replacement and learn to walk again and go back to the library too soon because she needed the money. I watched her take in a stray cat because she thought it needed her. It didn't. She needed it. That's the secret nobody tells you. The cat doesn't need the person. The person needs the cat. That's why she keeps me. That's why she talks to me. That's why she's still here.

She turns around and looks at me. "You don't care," she says. "You're just a cat."

I blink at her. Slowly. The way cats do when we trust someone. She doesn't notice.

I want to tell her. I want to tell her that I've read every book in this house and I understand more than she thinks. I want to tell her that I know about the second mortgage she took out to pay for the hip surgery and I know about the credit cards she maxed out when her mother was sick and I know about the sister in Arizona who never offers to help. I want to tell her that I've been keeping track.

But I can't. So I do the next best thing. I get up from the sun and walk over to her and rub against her leg. She reaches down and scratches behind my ear and I let her. It's not much. But it's what I've got.

She sits back down at the table and picks up the letter again and reads it for the twenty-first time. I jump up on the table and sit on the letter. She laughs. It's a small laugh. A broken laugh. But it's real.

"You're a pain," she says. "You know that? You're a pain in the ass."

I purr. She scratches my head. The letter crinkles under me. For a moment, everything is fine.

Then the phone rings.

She looks at it. It's the landline, the one she never answers, the one that only gets calls from bill collectors and her sister. She lets it ring. It goes to voicemail. The machine clicks on. There's a voice. A man's voice. Not a bill collector. Not her sister.

"Margaret," the voice says. "This is Daniel. From the bank. I know you got the letter. I'm calling because I want to help. Call me back."

She stares at the phone. I stare at the phone. The machine clicks off.

Daniel. From the bank. I've never heard her mention a Daniel. I've heard her mention a lot of people. She talks to herself when she thinks I'm asleep. She talks about her coworkers and her neighbors and the woman at the grocery store who always asks about her hip. But she's never mentioned a Daniel. Not once.

She picks up the phone. She dials. She waits. I can hear it ringing on the other end. Then a voice. The same voice. She says hello. She says thank you for calling. She says she doesn't understand. She says why would you help me.

I sit on the letter and listen. The sun moves across the floor. The coffee goes cold. She talks for twenty minutes and when she hangs up she's crying again but it's different. It's the kind of crying that comes with relief. The kind that comes when you've been holding your breath and you finally let go.

She looks at me. "He's going to help," she says. "He's going to fix it."

I don't believe her. I've been alive eleven years and I've learned that people who say they're going to fix things usually don't. But she believes it. She picks me up and holds me against her chest and I let her. Her heart is beating fast. Her bathrobe smells like coffee and sadness and something underneath that I can't name.

I look over her shoulder at the letter on the table. First Meridian. Daniel. Thirty days.

Something's wrong. I don't know what. But something's wrong.

She puts me down and goes to take a shower. The water runs. I stay on the table and read the letter again. Then I read it again. There's a phone number at the bottom. I memorize it.

I'm a cat. I can't call anyone. I can't do anything. But I can remember. I can watch. I can wait.

The water stops. She comes back in the room with wet hair and a towel around her head and she's smiling. Actually smiling. For the first time in weeks.

"I'm going to be okay," she says. "I'm going to be okay, Cat."

I purr. It's what she wants. But I'm watching the phone. I'm watching the door. I'm watching everything.

Because something's wrong. And I'm going to figure out what.