The Name of the Rule is Compassion

Willow the cat lives under the porch.

I pretend not to know she is there.

I can’t possibly afford another cat. I really can’t even afford Charlie the traumatized cat who came to live with me last April. Technically, this house is not even supposed to have a cat, but the landlord smiled when he met her. She lives outdoors guarding the garden during the day, and comes in the side door to sleep in the cellar at night. That’s all the cat I can possibly take.

There is another cat who comes to our property daily. LaBelle is always infested with feral cats, but this cat has a collar. She is a smoky Russian Blue who used to belong to the child who lived just a few houses down from the Artful Dodgers’ house. Let’s pretend that child’s name was Willow. I can’t tell you any stories about Willow the girl, the way I’ve told stories about the Artful Dodgers, Jimmy’s boy and the Baker Street Irregulars. Willow didn’t play with the other children. She only bullied them. She barely ever spoke, and when she encountered other children outside she would push them and hit them. Sometimes she chased them all the way to my house, where they came inside to hide until Willow went home. I couldn’t do anything to help Willow. Adrienne said she took all her classes in the special needs classroom and didn’t come out of it at school. Last summer, Willow’s family moved away, and wherever they are, I wish them the best. But they abandoned the cat.

Every time the cat wandered over to my yard, the children would cry “Oh no, it’s Willow’s cat,” and chase her away the way they wished they could do to Willow. They never said the cat’s name, if they knew it in the first place. They only called her “Willow’s cat.”  Charlie would arch her back and spit at Willow’s cat, who was feistier than Charlie and sometimes bopped Charlie’s nose with the claws out. I’d never had a cat in my life before Charlie, so I didn’t understand why Charlie kept coming home at night with scabs on her nose. I thought she was getting a ringworm infection at first. But one evening, I came out to find Charlie hiding in fear halfway up the tree while Willow’s cat ate from Charlie’s dish, and that’s when I put two and two together. And then Willow’s family moved away, but Willow’s cat remained– still with her jingling collar on like a domestic house cat, but with no house to return to at night.

I got tired of calling her “Willow’s Cat,” so I just started calling her “Willow.”

Willow is shy, as most Russian Blues are. She slips away to hide under the porch when she sees me coming. She never comes out when I let Lady McFluff the guinea pig graze under a laundry basket while I pull weeds in the garden. She never comes out when the neighbor children visit me for Popsicles and a tour of the garden.  But I see her often enough, in the evenings, eating out of Charlie’s dish and sneaking a drink from her water bowl. They seem to have come to a truce: Charlie eats the gravy out of the Friskies can and then goes to hide on the porch roof. Willow sneaks up to the porch to have a few bites. Then Charlie comes down, and Willow runs off. One night I was terrified because I couldn’t find Charlie at all. She didn’t come home for thirty hours, which isn’t like her. Just when I was afraid she’d left me forever, she ran into the yard with Willow, and I don’t know if they were chasing each other in a fight or in play.  From what little I know, this is the way cats stop being rivals and become neighbors.

Once, I was sitting on the porch talking to Jimmy’s boy in the late evening, and a round gray figure moved in to eat from the cat dish just inches from my back. I didn’t turn around, because I thought it was Willow, and I didn’t want Willow to go hungry waiting for me to go inside. When I finally glanced behind me, I realized that I was right next to the neighborhood racoon who sometimes peeks at us through the window at night. I’ve named the raccoon Hattie because she reminds me of a Davy Crockett hat my parents bought me at the gift shop at Watoga State Park one summer. Jimmy’s boy wanted to trap Hattie and keep her in a cage as a pet, but I explained that raccoons are wild animals who visit, not pets we can keep.  I said the same about Giovanni, the possum who lives in the tree and once wandered into my groundhog trap. Giovanni has found a mate lately, a lady possum I call Ciara. Jimmy’s boy wanted to keep Giovanni and Ciara for pets as well.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to own the zoo. I told stories about my imaginary pet lion to my bemused first grade teacher. Now, I have a menagerie of beautiful animals all around my house, and none of them are really mine.

Last night, Charlie wouldn’t go to bed.

I’ve developed a habit of coming down to the basement to tuck her in at night. She waits for me at the top of the steps, and if I don’t come down she stays there all night. I bring down some kibble to fill her indoor bowl. She eats noisily in front of me, then jumps into my lap to snuggle for a short time, then paces around the cellar while I talk to her. Finally, she curls up in her blanket box to go to sleep, and I go upstairs to bed as well. Last night, she wouldn’t eat. She wouldn’t settle. She kept trying to hide in the back of the cellar, under that disgusting old slop sink that doesn’t even have a faucet anymore. Eventually, she walked up the stairs to the side door and watched it like a hawk.

I called to her to come downstairs and go to bed, so that I could go to bed, but she wouldn’t.

I heard meowing by the side door. I thought it was Charlie, but I realized it was coming from outside.

I left the basement and went out the door. Sure enough, there was Willow. She bolted away and hid under the porch when I approached.  I realized that Charlie had come in for the night a little early, and eaten her can of Friskies in the basement instead of outside, which meant Willow hadn’t gotten an evening meal.

She’s not entitled to an evening meal.

She isn’t my cat. She’s somebody else’s, and that person left her to starve. She’s none of my business: except, of course, that she came to me.

I called to Willow to see if she’d come out, which she didn’t.

I used to know all kinds of rules. I used to be terrified of not living up to every single rule and every single awkward custom I’d ever internalized as a Charismatic Catholic. I had rules for every moment of my day and panic attacks when I didn’t fulfill them. Now that I’m older and utterly broken, I only know one rule. The name of that rule is “the Golden Rule.” The name of the rule is “compassion.” The name of the rule is “love your neighbor as yourself.” The essence of that rule is that nobody owns anybody, but we are all responsible for each other.  I’m not good at that rule, but I’m learning.

I left a handful of kibble in Charlie’s outdoor dish, for Willow to find.

When I came out this morning, it was gone.