Read Online Cherished by Barbara Abercrombie - Free Book Online Page A

to three in the morning when Calico pounced on my bed and began the distinct yee-oowl sound that came from deep in her throat whenever she’d caught a prize out in the field. Annoyed by her loud cries, I shoved her off my bed. Sometimes she’d bring me a mouse that was still alive and then play chase with it on the borders of my quilt. Usually though, she’d crouch on the dark blue carpet, and I’d hear her crunching up tiny bones like she was eating a whole walnut shell.
    But on this particular night, she pushed her nose hard against my face. Between her cries, I heard the crackling and popping coming from outside my window. I turned and saw the glow of flames twelve inches from the head of my bed. Our house was on fire.
    I swept up Calico in my arms, ran to the foot of the stairs, and screamed for my dad to wake up. In a frantic scramble, my father ran to the back of the house and began to douse the fire with our garden hose. The flames were burning the outside of my bedroom walls, turning the thick yellow paint black and brittle.
    The fire chief later scolded my father for leaving the pile of chemical-soaked rags outside my window, and for not having smoke detectors in the house. “You know how fast this old house would have burned down?” he asked.
    My dad shook his head.
    â€œTwenty-four minutes and there would have been nothing left,” said the fire chief.
    I tried to imagine what it would be like to lose everything in twenty-four minutes. I knew then that Calico must have come to my room within seconds of the fire starting.
    She saved us from losing our house that night — and maybe our lives. But it wasn’t just that night. Calico saved me all the time. This yearning I had for my mother was because she wasn’t around much. I never knew when I would see her next. Calico was always available. Her willingness to let me love her and just hang out with her on the brown velvet couch was the kind of closeness I needed most.
    Sometimes she’d let down her guard and race wild through the house. She got this crazy, almost-possessed look in her wide eyes. Then she would tear around our house, galloping full speed through every room, hitting walls and racing upside down along the underside of my grandmother’s old wing chair. She made me laugh, brought me out of my contained self.
    Calico had an odd routine with me. Every morning she’d study me in the shower. My father had converted an old wine barrel into an open stall but never got around to figuring out how to put a curtain around it. There was also no doorknob on the bathroom, so Calico could push her way in. Every shower I took, Calico would stand sentinel on the zinc tub across from the wine barrel and watch me. Her pupils narrowed and her eyes rarely blinked as the steam rose up around me and filled the room. I became self-conscious of her steady gaze on my naked body. It made me uneasy. I was starting to develop breasts and hips, and I felt like she was documenting the changes in me, that she quite possibly had arrived from another planet to report on the human body.
    Calico gave birth to the strangest assortment of kittens. There were always two or three with tail issues — kinks and knots, and sometimes no tail at all. My brothers and I gave them silly names like Kinks One and Kinks Two and Tommy-No-Tail. My father kept saying he was going to get her fixed “once and for all,” but he was sidetracked raising my brothers and me, and inevitably Calico would show up fat and moody one more time. As soon as her litter was old enough, we’d take them down to Lucky’s Market in a cardboard box with a sign that said “Free Kittens.” I’d point out how unique their tails were, and that was always a good selling point.
    Calico chose to have her last litter underneath my covers late one night when no one else was home. I curled myself up on my pillow to give her all the room she needed as I