A Paw-sible Theory

“I simply can’t resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course.”

––Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field, Fisher

CHAPTER TWO: Something Wrong

The loud thud-crash bounced me out of my favorite chair and on my feet. Temporarily disoriented and unsure of what I had heard or where it came from, I zigzagged across the living room, torn between diving for cover and investigating the noise. Instinct told me to run; something else told me otherwise, and in that moment of indecision, Misty frantically fleeing from whatever she thought was chasing her, streaked past me and disappeared.

I listened for voices or other sounds and heard none.

The house was eerily quiet.

Alyx’s bedroom door was wide open. My step hesitant, all senses focused on the job at hand, I crossed the threshold and nervously swept the room––nothing there, nothing out of place. I peered in the attached bathroom, stretching my neck as far as I could without actually entering, and nothing there either.

Belly touching the floor, ears close to my head, I crept down the dark hall toward the front part of the house where the partially closed door to the guest bath gave me pause; something was on the floor in front of the vanity. I pushed the door open and pounced, but the thing did not fight back––it was just a bunched up rug, the dim light giving it a sinister appearance. A quick glance over my shoulder assured me no one saw me attack the rug, and I moved on to the second bedroom where the two large windows left nothing hidden.

At that point, Misty appeared at my side from wherever she’d been hiding, apparently no longer in fear for her life and meowed once. A vigorous slash of the tail and she obediently fell in line behind me, her head turning from side to side, ears swiveling as we made our way to the kitchen.

Misty had questions. I had no answers. Something was very wrong. In the kitchen, I saw Alyx slumped forward on the kitchen table, a dark fluid oozing from a gash on her head. I navigated the littered tile floor, gingerly sidestepping the broken pieces of an earthenware pot more than a quarter of an inch thick, the kind that a first year pottery student would create, and lay down across her bare feet. I didn’t know what to do.

Misty tried to tell me it wasn’t my fault, but she was wrong. My job was to look after my human and I had failed. I appreciated her support, I really did, but it didn’t make me feel any less responsible. I should have heard someone or something and warned her, but I fell asleep, heard nothing, saw nothing. Now Alyx was hurt.

Misty didn’t understand and I couldn’t explain it any better than that. Actually, I wasn’t so sure I understood the responsibility part myself. I only knew that’s how it was. The one thing I was sure of was that Alyx needed help.

I didn’t have to be an expert on human physiology to know she was hurt bad. I leaped on the table and touched her nose with mine, relieved that she was still breathing. Ethan would know what to do, except he didn’t live here anymore. The situation seemed hopeless. I lumbered away, head low, shoulders slumped, and then I remembered the conversation I overheard the night before.

My spirit restored, Misty and I padded to the foyer where we had a view of the street, the driveway, and all the activities in the neighborhood through the sidelights Alyx left bare for that purpose. There we waited still as doorstops positioned on both sides of the door, the imperceptible jerky movement of the tip of my tail the only sign of distress. For once, Misty had nothing to say, and in the silence, I let my mind wonder.

Knowing that I wasn’t about to repeat anything he said, I was Ethan’s confidante when he lived at home, and I knew it had been difficult for him to tell his mother that he wanted to move out. Ethan had been very close to his father before the divorce and his father’s neglect after the divorce broke his heart. His mother’s complete love had made it hurt a little less, but as he got older and learned to accept his relationship with his father for what it was, he confessed that sometimes he wished she didn’t love him quite as much, at times feeling smothered by the intensity of her devotion.

It had taken him several days to figure out how to say it so she wouldn’t be hurt and when he finally told her he wanted to move out, she agreed it was time for him to go and helped him put together the things he needed to setup house. Truth was, Alyx knew just about as soon as he did that he wanted to move out, and she had made it easy for him on purpose, but not because she was glad that he was leaving as Ethan might have thought.

Since then, their relationship had moved to a different level, and for the most part, Alyx was a friend and advisor. Apparently, Ethan had unwisely ignored her advice lately, and that’s what she said she wanted to discuss with him when she’d invited him for breakfast the night before.