This Month's Story

“I see you have a cat. Thought you didn’t like cats”

I was sitting on the low wooden platform beside the porch with my cousin, Peter. Peter was pointing to the roof on the far side of the house. There, sitting on the very edge, was Holly, our black tomcat. Holly hadn’t been visible since Peter had come to visit yesterday. He hadn’t showed up last night when we went to bed. Now he was back, but obviously keeping his distance.

“Well, I guess Holly’s an exception to my feelings about cats,” I said looking at Holly who was looking back at us. “We get along. He’s usually a lot nosier though when we have company. I don’t know why he is staying away from us the way he is.” I called to Holly but he didn’t move.

“He probably smells my cat, Pearl. Pearl’s a tom and black, too. Looks like Jennie seems to have smelled Pearl also. He nodded toward Jennie, our Weimaraner, who lying on the porch dozing; closer than Holly but still unusually distant. Every so often, when she felt we were talking about her, she opened her eyes and watched us.

Peter wasn’t really my cousin, it was one of those things where your parents were close to another couple and you called them, “Aunt” Mary and “Uncle” George, which in this case Mary and George were their names.

When I was young, Peter would always be with them when they came to visit. Although my mother and father thought Aunt Mary and Uncle George were wonderful people, I didn’t care for them. They always made me feel uncomfortable. It seemed to me that they were artificial and that their laughs and general air of affability that my parents liked so much was the cover for something different, something I intuitively didn’t like.

But Peter was different. I liked Peter and he liked me. He was tall, thin and extremely quiet, and despite being several years older than me, we became very close friends. We always enjoyed each other’s company, disappearing into my room during their visits and playing board games until his parents came and got him and left.

We never visited them.

Peter’s parents died years later in a car crash. The accident happened long after I had grown and moved away. Peter was the one who told me about his parent’s death. He had maintained ties with me and when Stella and I got married and moved to the coast, he would come to visit us occasionally, driving down from Tupelo in his beautiful blue old Lincoln and stay for a day or two. Stella liked him and we both looked forward to his brief visits. After his parents death, his visits became less frequent and we hadn’t seen him for several years.

As we sat there, I wondered how I was going to bring up the fact that Peter did not look well. Stella had mentioned it to me last night that he appeared ill and here in the bright light of a fall morning, I could see what she meant.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been by to see you and Stella these last few years,” Peter said bringing up the subject himself, “but things have been difficult for a long time.” He sat staring out at the water and then abruptly seemed to change the subject. “You never liked my mother and father. Now, now, don’t say anything.” He waved aside my protests. “You didn’t and I guess, I can’t blame you.”

He sat still, as if composing his thoughts. “I was a big disappointment to them, you know. I was different from them and although they tried, they couldn’t change me. God knows they tried. I was actually glad when they had their accident.”

He was silent for a long while and then turned and looked directly at me, “I’ve been seeing them now for about three years.” He turned and sat still, again staring out at the water. I kept very quiet.

“It’s usually late at night. I can see Mother is in the background, scowling like she’s upset. Father is always closer and he’s angry. He seems to think the accident was my fault. It wasn’t, I had nothing to do with it, but they want me to think that I did. They seem to think that my being involved in their deaths proves something about me. They’re actually glad about what I’m supposed to have done and how I did it. They appear to be urging me to act on that and are extremely upset that I haven’t.”

He got up and stared at the distant figure of Holly “After awhile, I couldn’t stand their constant visits, their silent accusations, their demands. That’s when I got Pearl. He’s a big cat, bigger than Holly, much bigger.”

He sat down again and returned to looking out over the water. “The first night my parents came and found Pearl there beside me, they almost went crazy. They kept trying to move around him, going from room to room trying to get close to me, but Pearl was always with me and they seemed to hate being anywhere near him. They yelled at me, screamed; but I couldn’t hear them.

“I haven’t seen them for a while, although I sometimes see Pearl staring at some corner late at night and I know they’re not far away. But they haven’t been back.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve been ill, as you’ve noticed. I saw Stella staring at me last night.” He turned back to me and smiled and I saw again the Peter that was my boyhood friend. “I wanted to come by once more and see you. I wanted to tell you I haven’t changed and that I still love you and Stella.”

That night Stella fixed a wonderful dinner and we talked till late, laughing and telling stories about times that are gone but still come back to friends in the late hours of an evening.

The next day he drove back to Tupelo.

Several months later, I was awakened by a soft muzzle touching my arm. It was Jennie. I laid still and listened for thunder. Jennie is soul-afraid of thunder. She’s usually very good about sleeping in our bedroom, but when she hears thunder, she becomes terrified and wakes me up.

I lay there and listened. I didn’t hear any thunder. She nudged me again and I opened my eyes and looked at her. The dark shape of her head was turned towards the doorway. There, sitting in the doorway, was Holly! He was watching us!

I realized that that was not possible. Holly spends his nights locked in the kitchen. As I became more awake, I realized that the cat I was seeing in the dim light was too big to be Holly. I lay not moving, noting that what little light there was was coming from behind the cat. Despite this, his eyes were bright and intently focused on me.

All this took place over only a few seconds. I didn’t feel fear, and motioned for Jennie to lie down and be still. Slowly, with a soft scrapping of her paws on the wood floor, she did, never taking her eyes off the large cat sitting in the doorway. The tableau lasted for perhaps a minute more with each of us remaining absolutely still. Then the cat was gone.

I watched for a few minutes more and then, when he didn’t return, I drifted back to sleep.

The next morning over a late breakfast I told Stella what had happened.

“Are you sure it wasn’t Holly?”

“Positive.”

“No chance of it being a dream.”

“Jennie was the one who woke me. She was scared. We both couldn’t have the same dream.” I stopped and considered what I had to say and then said it “Stella, I think it was Pearl, I think it was the big black tom Peter told me about when he was here. I think it was him I saw sitting in the doorway”

The phone rang and Stella got up and answered it in the kitchen. She talked quietly to someone for a few moments and then came back and rejoined me at the dining room table.

“That was Martha, Peter’s housekeeper. When she came to work early this morning she found Peter had died in his sleep last night. Peter had told her to call us if anything happened to him.” She leaned forward and put her hand over mine. We sat quietly for a few moments.

“I asked her about Peter’s cat. She said Peter has never had a cat.”