The Cat Who Spent Nine Lives Saving Me Chapter 01
After losing my job, I spent three days ignoring my mother’s calls.
Every voicemail asked when I would send money for my brother’s wedding. Not one asked whether I was okay.
I had spent years handing over most of my paychecks to my family. Now I had no job, almost no savings, and no one I could turn to.
That was how I ended up on the roof of my apartment building, ready to end my life.
But just as I stepped toward the edge, a tuxedo cat sprawled across my feet and exposed its soft white belly.
[A North Shore winter will freeze a cat to death. Human, hurry up and take Cat home!]
[Heat, a fireplace, all the tuna Cat can eat… Cat supposes those will do.]
I spent the last three hundred dollars in my account getting it vaccinated and dewormed.
Once inside, the kitten stared around my empty basement apartment. [Meow?]
“You can stay for a few days. I’ll find you a good home.”
That night, I rolled over in a daze and suddenly found myself pressed against a warm, soft belly.
[Fine. Since you’re too stingy even to turn on the heat, Cat will keep you warm instead.]
[After all, you’re the first human Cat has ever raised.]
……
I was about to kill myself when a kitten staged an ambush.
[A North Shore winter will freeze a cat to death. Human, hurry up and take Cat home!]
The tuxedo cat in front of me flopped onto my shoes again, bared its belly, and let out two imperious meows.
I froze.
Could severe depression make you hear cats talk?
I wasn’t sure. Better listen a little longer.
When the kitten saw that I wasn’t moving, it got up and head-butted my ankle.
[Stop spacing out! You climbed seventeen flights without giving up. If you had that kind of determination with anything else, how could you possibly fail?]
The scolding snapped me out of it. I cautiously picked the kitten up.
It didn’t resist at all. It only tucked its cold nose into the collar of my coat.
Hallucination or not, Graven Lake was in the middle of a December cold snap. If I left it on the roof, it wouldn’t survive the night.
I checked my bank balance: three hundred and eighty-seven dollars.
Enough for a basic veterinary checkup and half a month’s worth of cat food.
At the veterinary clinic, the young vet listened to its heart and couldn’t help laughing.
“You don’t see many tuxedo cats this cooperative. What’s its name?”
I hesitated. I had planned to let its adopter choose a name, but the kitten lifted its head.
[A name? Does having a name mean a cat has a home?]
Something seemed to bump softly against my heart.
“Domino. His name is Domino.”
“It suits him. All that black and white—and he looks like he might set off a whole chain of good luck.”
On the way home, I held Domino in my arms and still felt as though I were dreaming.
I actually had a cat.
The carrier I’d ordered hadn’t arrived yet, so he had to curl up against me. His warm breath brushed my collarbone, and the hollow place in my chest that had been frozen for so long slowly began to feel again.
The moment I opened my apartment door, Domino jumped down, his tail held high.
[New territory! Patrol and mark it!]
He made a circuit of the apartment, then looked up at me.
[Where’s the fireplace? Where’s the heat? Don’t tell Cat you only own one old blanket.]
[Meow?]