Secondhand Grace

Bedraggled. That was the best description for him. He reeked. Once you became accustomed to the smell, there were the concerning wounds. Scab here, scab there. Cuts aplenty. I zoned in on his left ear. “What happened to your face, bud?” No answer. Mentally, I was having a full-on conversation with my maternal grandmother, dead for going on 28 years, as I recollect. That’s what I do. I have intense conversations with people who aren’t here anymore. [Lucille (my grandmother): Shame you don’t have any Smith’s lip cream to pack those cuts. It’s antibacterial and the lidocaine numbs anything. Me: Seriously? It would be disgusting! Smith’s Pharmacy shut down over 30 years ago. Her: the lip cream lasts forever. Me: I disagree, but that’s beside the point since I don’t have any, Grandma.] That’s how these talks typically go. It’s friendly banter. She tells me what I know to be true but can’t admit. I spar back with her on the ridiculousness of correct yet worthless knowledge. There is no lip cream for his wounds. I turn my attention back to the gentleman in question. Once he was dapper. I see that now. I study him and mentally melt the last years of hard times and insult off him. I can imagine the twinkle his eyes once held, the prance in his step. He had been a dandy fellow. I open my mouth to say something. I can tell his attention is elsewhere, and I am concerned he will turn and walk away from me before I can figure out a next best plan. A plan is not enough. Yet, sometimes in life, that’s all you have, another move. You just break it down into a series of a single right decision backed up by another single right decision. It’s my secret to life, anyway. That’s when I heard it. He had a partner. Just as I was fearful of a bait and attack scenario, she stepped out from the shadows. While he was a stranger to me, she was another story. I had seen her before, many times. My grandmother chimed in again. “I could have told you she was his kind. You’d be best to watch your back. They’re good for nothins, the two of them.” The companion was in better shape. But, she wasn’t alone. This is not a story about me being a good Samaritan to a couple of ne’er do wells I encountered on the streets of some metropolitan city. I was not accosted by a couple meaning ill will toward my person. This is the story of how I wound up with a litter of feral kittens in my guest bath. The once dandy fellow goes by Puff Daddy or Bowser now, depending on which grandchild is looking out of the window. Momma cat is Peach. They are the proud parents of 6 tiny, feral kittens who would soon succumb to the record-breaking Texas heat, if they didn’t first become bobcat appetizers. What do you do if you’re a stray cat in downtown Forney with a problem? Easy. You come to me.

One morning we spotted a single ginger kitten with white socks. I walked right up to it and scooped it to my neck. It was tiny. Our slate-colored tiled front porch is practically kiln temperature lately. My husband held the kitten. My granddaughter held the kitten. My daughter-inlaw held the kitten. Empath that I claim to be, I burst out in tears as we walked back inside leaving what I inexpertly pronounced to be a baby girl on the scalding porch. “I can’t do this,” I announced. It was more like a chortled whisper. I don’t form audible words when I cry. So, I scooped her up, placed her in the guest bath, whipped up a batch of Pinterest posted emergency kitten replacement formula, made a litter box out of an ancient casserole pan, and said many prayers. The next morning, I grabbed another baby, then another, then another. Ezra, my grandson, proudly proclaimed he had names for all of them. He’s five. His names reflect his age. Apple is our sweet girl. She is joined by her 3 brothers Worm, Banana, and Dragon. There’s so much hissing. Think about it. You follow your mom onto a bunch of hot rocks to be kittennapped by a crazy woman who talks to her dead grandmother and makes fake cat milk. I can see how that would be intensely upsetting. But now, a week has passed. Banana has mellowed. Shy little Worm tolerates my touch. Apple bounds across the floor to greet me. Dragon has already found a new home. And, what about the two we haven’t caught? I fear they are beyond saving. They have learned the secrets to survival under the house of the giants. They play in the recesses of the shadows. They venture out only at nightfall. They have formed a separate alliance, scarcely remembering the existence of siblings. While the heat has not claimed them, I worry still. Glimpses of them show some labored breathing in the oven of my front flowerbed. I wait. Surely, there is still time. Surely, they can be persuaded to eat the food from the giant’s hand. I watch momma cat closely. Soon, I will bait the humane trap in hopes of securing her. Once spayed, she’s welcome to live out her days under the house of the giants. I just want to free her from the agony of bringing babies into a cruel world. I don’t have much to offer her, just a little secondhand grace.