It was just for one night. Layla should have known better. Chet had led her down this path more than once. But when she saw the bedraggled, skinny tabby cat, fur matted with burrs, she just couldn’t say no.
“One night,” Layla said, “then it goes to a shelter.”
Chet’s grin practically wrapped around his head as he carried the cat to the bathroom, along with the bag full of shampoo, combs, and various and sundry fur mat removal implements.
Five minutes later, Layla was cleaning up the cat while Chet bandaged his wounds, sulking on the closed toilet seat. By the time she had finished, the poor animal was half-bald and shivering in a towel, burying her head (during the cleaning process, the cat’s gender had become clear) in Layla’s armpit.
“She’s pretty weak,” Layla said to a still sulking Chet as the cat purred on her lap.
Chet mumbled something that sounded like, “Didn’t seem so weak when she was clawing the crap out of me.”
“I don’t think she’ll do so well at a shelter,” Layla continued, ignoring him. “Maybe we should keep her until she’s put on some weight.” Holding the towel-wrapped cat to her chest, she picked up Chet’s second bag, filled with dry and wet cat food and headed to the kitchen.
The cat ate like she hadn’t seen food in weeks. Maybe she hadn’t. Chet, deciding to give her one more chance, rolled up some tinfoil into a ball and flicked it across the kitchen floor.
“Look at that cat go,” Chet said. “She’s not half so weak as you think, Lay.”
Layla sniffed. “We can’t keep calling her cat. If she’s going to stay a while, she needs a proper name.”
Chet glanced from the cat to Layla, a smile twitching the corners of his mouth. He had her, and she knew it, even if she wasn’t going to admit it yet.
“What about Millie?” Chet suggested.
“Millie? Why would we call a cat Millie?”
“After your ma. I think she would have liked that.”
“Millie.” Layla liked the warm feeling it brought her. “Come here, Millie.” She scooped the cat off the floor and took her up to bed, leaving Chet to set up the litter box he had left in the car, not wanting to push his luck. By the time he came to bed, Layla was fast asleep, curled around Millie, who was using her arm as a pillow.
~~~
It had been a week since Chet’s funeral. Layla lay back in the recliner with Millie in her arms, remembering the day he had brought her home. Millie had liked him just fine but had somehow never completely forgiven him for his clumsy attempt at removing the burs from her fur.
Funny, she would let Chet pat but never hold her. She begged Millie to pick her up and cradle her like a baby, fully trusting her exposed belly. She even learned to walk on a leash.
“He must have known,” Layla said, as much to herself as to Millie, who lay a paw on her cheek and licked her chin.
There was a time Layla would have said the cat was just licking off the salt from her tears. She laughed at the thought. No one could convince her Millie wasn’t grieving Chet as hard as she was.
Layla closed her eyes to rest, and when she opened them again it was dark. Millie, who had never taken to a litter box, stood at the door asking for out.
“Life does go on, doesn’t it, girl,” Layla said as she worked her way out of the recliner.
Millie slipped out into the yard. She never took long and never strayed out of the yard. When she hadn’t returned after a few minutes, Layla called her. “Millie, come in here now. Time for dinner.”
Layla stepped into the yard to find Millie gone. Panicked and heartsore, she searched the neighborhood for her, not finding a trace. “She’ll come home. She’s never strayed,” she told herself, all the while terrified she would never see her again.
The next morning, Layla put up missing posters for her beloved tabby. Grief stricken by both Chet’s death and Millie’s disappearance, she trudged home to an empty house.
A few hours later, Layla heard meowing coming from the back yard. She rushed to the door, flinging it open. Millie stared up at her, a triumphant look on her face as she nudged a sorry-looking tuxedo kitten forward.
Layla picked him up, cradling him to her chest as Millie strutted past her into the house. “All right,” Layla said. “He can stay, but just for tonight.”
I was feeling tired, but wanted to write a longer story. Nothing presented itself, so I went to a random first line generator. This flash grew from the sentence, “It was just one night.”
It’s funny how the mind works. On another day, when I was more awake, I might have written a completely different story. Somehow my mind meandered to Layla, Chet, and Millie. Hope you liked their tail (deliberate misspelling).
Purr-fect.
What a beautiful story. Love it. Thank you 💕