The Cat We Don't Have - Part 3

Part 3 – The Munch Bunch Plus Three  

As that summer wore on, things settled into a kind of easy and familiar routine. TC would stop by for breakfast each morning, often waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me to open the door, and put food in her dish on the top landing of our little back porch. Needless to say, the rest of the “Munch Bunch” as I came to call them, were all fed, too.  It was like feeding time at the zoo, or the wildlife clinic where I had volunteered for 6 years. It was natural and normal for me to feed any and every living creature within my reach. Squirrels, chipmunks, birds, gophers, even a turtle at one point. If it lived, it got fed.  The really neat thing is that the cat seemed to be an accepted part of the whole gang – no one showed any fear of her. Nor did she give them any reason to fear. It was all pretty ideal. Except for the one weak link in her armor, her fear of my getting too close to her, she was for all intents and purposes our cat.

The other, larger cat made occasional guest appearances and the two of them seemed to become friends. They would often lie together in the sun on the deck of our gazebo, and I could imagine what they were saying to one another:

TC: “Did you hear the two-legger this morning? She was actually making a sound like us!”

Cat 2:  “No! Really? I thought it was you!”

TC: “It was easy to teach her how to do it correctly. I showed her how it should sound, and believe it or not, she was starting to get pretty good at it!”

One day, Cat 2 decided to come inside, after letting me pet her, something that surprised and momentarily delighted me to pieces! She strolled through our house, perfectly at ease, and settled herself on the bed in the guest room. I had to make a decision: it was clear that this cat belonged to someone. She was very trusting and very at ease around people, and I could not in good conscience kidnap someone else’s pet. So, after letting her rest for a little while, I encouraged her to go back outside. The really strange thing is that she only came back to see us just a few more times; then, I never saw her again.

But, the Universe had some more surprises in store for me. To my utter astonishment, one morning another new cat was waiting on the back porch. This one was all smokey gray with maybe a tiny spot of white on its chest. Its head was its most outstanding feature: it was enormous!  I had a feeling just by watching the way it walked, almost like a human weight lifter, with shoulders that swaggered in counterpoint to his foot steps, that this was a male. I opened the door to see if he was accepting of people and no, he was not. But….he didn’t run like the wind, either. He just moved very quickly down the steps, then turned around and looked at me as if to say, “OK. Now what? Do I get any food, or what?”  There was no sign yet of TC, and I found it hard to turn any animal away, so I put some food in the dish on the porch and he swaggered back up the steps to enjoy a nice breakfast. Then, he was gone. About 15 minutes later, TC came along and took her spot on the porch. It was all “business as usual” from that point on.

What on earth was going on, I wondered! Three cats, two of them being possible strays and all of them gray and white. Could they all be from the same family? A few years earlier, there was a stable neighboring our backyard. It was torn down to make way for new houses. Unfortunately, the family who lived in the house at the stables moved away, and left their barn cats behind. All of us neighbors tried to catch them all, but it was impossible. We did the best that we could, but a few of them ran away. Was it possible, I wondered, that these cats were the offspring of some of those abandoned cats?  No matter what, I felt that I had to try and take care of them in some way. IF I could catch them, I would have them neutered. IF I could catch them, I would give them a forever home once they were neutered. And all of that was contingent on IF they would let me touch them, or get close enough to catch them. A lot of “ifs”; too many, really, to hope for.

So, there we were, from no pets to two part-time pets, and trying to avoid cat piracy with the third one. Very curious, I thought. The rabbit hole was clearly no place for a woman who was still heart-broken from the loss of her dog, and who fell in love with a cat that would have no part of her – but said cat would make the sacrifice of eating the food offered to her. Everything just felt out of whack (but for me, that is actually quite normal).

Gus peeked out from under the shed one hot summer day, and I saw the front part of  him lying on the sidewalk, with the back half of him still underneath shed. He head was lying on his front paws, which were crossed one over the other. He was looking somewhat peaceful, but I swear he was trying to send a message to the cats:

“I don’t care what you all do with the porch and the food bowls, but stay away from my shed! This is MY turf…and don’t you forget it!”

Curious, Curious and hilarious, all at the same time.

                          Second cat                                              The Cat We Don't Have, or simply, TC
              

To be continued….