Summer Re-Release Belle

Beauty is in the eye...

Jul 30, 2023

Jaz never grew tired of watching Maisie and Belle wind their way through the flowers on her deck. It also never ceased to amaze her how well the two cats got along, or that Belle had deigned to join their little family.

Maisie had lived her life as a pampered house cat. Not Belle. Belle had shown up on Jaz’s deck three summers ago, looking anything but beautiful. A scrawny, hissing, walking fur mat, she had been filthy and bedraggled. And hungry.

Jaz had brought Maisie into the house, then returned to the deck with food and water, as well as a cardboard box with a door cut into it and an old blanket on the bottom. The stray cat was nowhere to be seen, but Jaz left her offering and slipped back into the house to watch through the bay window.

Sure enough, the cat returned, sniffed at the food and water, then devoured both. She ignored the box. Over the next few days, she became braver, eventually adopting the box as a bed, though she still ran any time Jaz ventured onto the deck. Soon after, she and Maisie struck up a tentative friendship, or at least a tolerance for one another.

Jaz moved her rocking chair onto the deck. She would sit and knit for a few hours each day. She started to call the stray cat Belle, not because she was beautiful, but because of her gentle spirit and because Jaz saw how beautiful she could be if properly cared for. Belle began to frequent the deck, even when Jaz was present.

Then came the day when Belle rubbed against Jaz’s leg. She bolted when Jaz held out a tentative hand, then returned and sniffed at it warily. Within a week, she had claimed Jaz’s lap.

Jaz eventually coaxed her into the house and made a vet appointment for her. The technicians had to shave Belle bald, but when her fur grew back in, she was indeed beautiful, her outsides now matching her gentle spirit.

Jaz tended her flowers, watching her girls wind in and out among them. She stopped when Belle came and rubbed against her legs, reminding her she needed to rest. Together, they sat in the rocking chair, enjoying the beautiful flowers that had brought them together.

This story came about because of an unintentional prompt from my friend Connie (not the first from her). She posted a comment in a group we both belong to about watching her cats wind in and out of the flowers on her deck. One of her cats, Scruffy, is a stray she’s taking care of. Our group has been following his progress. In any event, the image this comment conjured stuck with me, and led to this story. Thank you, Connie, for a great, if unintended, prompt.