It's 3 a.m. (She Must Be Lonely)

I type more slowly these days, and it’s not the chill in the fall Kentucky air stiffening my fingers. Ally, our brown tabby cat, sits on my lap while I type. A few minutes after I open my Blog files, I’ll see a flicker of movement in the corner of my left eye. My eyes focus on a tail, pertly bobbing across the room until it dips sharply, and Ally alights soundlessly in the space between my body and the back of the computer chair. She’ll balance lightly on one armrest and peer around my shoulder with her small, pointed face. If I haven’t scooted back a bit to make room for her, she will retreat to the cove created by the small of my back, but her favorite thing is to wedge herself into the crook of my elbow and snooze on my lap, emitting periodic reedy snores. I didn’t think cats snored before I had Ally. Her warm, nine pound body changes the position of my left arm, making it harder to type, and her senseless head wags up and down as my arms change position to strike the keys. It’s a small price to pay for the blissful warmth that radiates from my lap to my entire body. How did I ever do without you, kitty? I wonder.

In July of 2004 Craig and I signed the papers on our first mortgage and moved into a little house just off Main Street in Ripon. I was three weeks into my third year of teaching, and the move took every last bit of my non-working hours for six weeks. I was sweeping off the front step and throwing down our doormat when I noticed a small cat threading its way between the rosebushes and sidling up to watch me. I put out my hand, and it condescended to be scratched before stepping back to regard me suspiciously. Clearwater eyes in a young but not kittenish face appraised me introspectively. She was mostly the color of coffee creamer, but tabby striped brown, and there was a hint of Siamese in her slightly darker face, ears, paws, and tail. She pivoted on little back legs, and as she hopped out of our yard I thought it would be nice to have a friendly cat in the neighborhood.

Craig and I were able to get a pet if we wanted, but I didn’t know if we would. Craig had both cats and dogs as a child, but he and my childhood pet, Chiquita, didn’t exactly have a warm relationship. Craig came to see me one night early in our dating years. He was sitting on the couch, chatting with my parents, and Chiquita curled up on his lap and went to sleep. I, of course, was charmed by what seemed like an intimate bonding experience for man and cat. Suddenly, Craig gestured to my parents in conversation and Chiquita levitated out of her sound sleep and attacked Craig’s hand with the ferocity and speed of a cheetah, grabbing it with her paws and biting it. From then on, Craig and Chiquita regarded each other suspiciously from opposite sides of the room. It was clear when we married that Chiquita would continue to live with my parents. Our first house was leased and pet-free. Now that we had become homeowners, I expected to settle into our house for a year or so, and then maybe look around for a kitten to adopt on one of my months off.

I expected the next few weeks to give me insight on the owners of the mysterious tabby, but I continued to see her catching mice in the orchard behind our house and sleeping in the browned grass of late California summer. I felt sorry for the serious, industrious little animal. One afternoon I caught her balancing on our glass-topped patio table, bolting down half a cup of milky coffee I had left there from breakfast. I couldn’t help but notice her grow a bit wispier, although she seemed to keep herself in meat while ridding the neighborhood of unsightly pests. The previous occupant of our house had a constant mice problem, and we were grateful that we never saw a rodent run across our kitchen linoleum. One morning I opened the back blinds to see a huge dead rat on our doorstep. It was clear who was responsible for this.

One night Craig and I spread a blanket on our back lawn and sat down, tilting our heads back to see the night sky. Suddenly, there were three of us on the blanket. Craig started up in surprise, and the tabby bounded away, clearing our six-foot back fence in two bounds.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Just a cat. I’ve been noticing her around lately. She’s really tame, but she doesn’t seem to have a home,” I replied. “You scared her off!”

“No, I didn’t. I just eagerly jumped towards her to welcome her, and she bolted. It’s not my fault that she misunderstood my gesture,” Craig retorted, and I rolled my eyes.

“Do you think she’ll come back?” I asked.

“No,” was Craig’s reply, but the timing was unfortunate. At that moment a white streak across our lawn became a furry body trying to arrange herself comfortably on the folds of our blanket.

By this time, the cat and I were not exactly strangers. I had taken to checking on her after school each afternoon, just to make sure she was all right. I’d put down my school bag and throw on some flip flops, then head out the back door to walk along the fence, staring through the orchard in search of her. The second time I did this, she bounded up to our chain-link fence, climbed it nimbly and took a flying leap, landing in the middle of our yard. Careful not to startle her, I sat down on the grass and she sidled up to me, settling down for a nap in my lap like it was a routine. The next day, she was waiting in our back yard, and the day after that she was pressing her nose to the glass of our back door, waiting for me to come out and see her.

My afternoons in the sun with a cat on my lap were a guilty pleasure. I enjoyed the companionship, but I needed to take responsibility. I would have to take her to the shelter or adopt her myself. I thought she was tame enough to be adopted, but in the meantime she would be caged in a small room with other animals. She was clean, sweet, and healthy, but not at the cute kitten age most people want when they adopt a shelter animal. If I took her to the shelter, would she be passed over?

I had a million reasons why adopting a stray was a bad idea. She’ll be feral. She won’t be housebroken. She won’t adjust well to having daily contact with humans. She may be sick. I wanted a kitten, and I thought it was better if an animal bonded with its owner in the first few months of life. Somehow, I just couldn’t reconcile those beliefs with the warm S-curve of the body on my lap.

I think my long slide towards adoption started with giving her a name. She became my Ally about six weeks after we moved. An independent fighter like her needed a strong name, not a cutesy moniker like Fluffy, Snookums, or Puss. I liked the veiled allusion to her strayness—she was an alley cat. I rejected the more feminine Allie in favor of A-L-L-Y because she was also my ally, my friend and comrade, and I was already used to having her around. I tentatively used her name in casual conversation that night. Craig raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. We had talked about adopting her by now, and I think he realized the power this furry little creature had over me already.

I asked around, and learned that Ally had belonged to our next door neighbors, who moved out a week after we moved in. I asked if there were any plans to collect their cat, and there were none. Ally was abandoned. Well, that explained her comfort level with humans, or did it? I wondered how she could acquire such a loving and gentle nature living with people who would take off and leave their pets to fend for themselves. I’d heard of feral cats, but feral humans? I obtained the new number for her former owners, and dialed, mentally rehearsing what I would say…

I just thought I’d let you know that your cat is fine. You know, the one you left to starve when you took off for a new city. I’m adopting her, and though I can’t say I’ll be the world’s greatest pet caretaker, you certainly haven’t given me much competition. I hope you sleep better at night knowing that she is being cared for…

It was easy to rant about the unfairness of Ally’s situation, but manners overcame the diatribe I was preparing as soon as a wary, middle aged female voice was on the other end of the line. I introduced myself and detailed finding the cat and learning it had belonged to her.

“Oh, yes, that’s our Kit!” she said brightly. I bristled. This woman did not have a right to name MY cat. Not your Kit, lady. My Ally.

“So, then, you have plans to come and get her?” Please, no.

“Well, when it was time to go, we called and called for her, but she just wouldn’t come and get in the car with us.”

Wow. That’s the greatest excuse I’ve ever heard. It’s not your fault; it’s the cat’s fault. If only she had approached an unfamiliar, belching metal monster and hopped right in, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If your kids refused to get in the car, would you have left them, too?

The woman sighed apologetically, “You see, we have this tiny apartment in San Jose, and no room for a pet. We had to get rid of the dog, and we only took the one cat, Kit’s mother. Last week she was hit by a car. We just don’t think we have room…” her voice trailed off, and I took a deep breath. If this woman wasn’t going to feel a sense of personal responsibility, I certainly could. She brightened at my suggestion that I adopt, er, Kit, and was able to tell me some useful information. She was a year and a half old, and had never been seen by a veterinarian or given shots. She was spayed, however, probably because her own mother produced two prolific litters in the same summer. I pleasantly thanked her for the information and ended the conversation. Taking long, deep breaths, I walked to the backyard, where Ally waited on the grass by our lawn chair. Although I know cats hate to be squeezed, I picked her up and gave her a small hug. Ally had been orphaned earlier this week, and if she had gone with these people, she may be dead as well. I was lucky to have her.

Three years later, I thought back to the conversation I had with Ally’s previous owner. Although I still didn’t condone the woman’s decision to abandon an animal, this time I could identify a bit more. We, too, were planning a move, and I agonized over what to do with Ally. She had grown to be a very important part of our life in Ripon. I would still spend afternoons with her on my lap, and when I let her in she would rub ecstatically around the edges of the living room coffee table, massaging her face against the corners in a comical motion I called lip- grinding. She was the only cat I knew that could tolerate sleeping under a blanket. In the winter, when she was cold, she would nose the edge of a blanket over herself, and I would pull it over her, face and all.

Although she enjoyed her afternoons in the house with us, she thrived in the orchard. Even though we fed her well, she continued to catch mice for sport. She would run to us when we called for her, scaling the fence and hopping daintily along the top towards us. Besides the dreaded yearly trip to the vet, she had never been away from this neighborhood. How dare we take her so far away? If we gave her up so we could move, would we be any better than her first owners?

Surprisingly, Craig put his foot down when I mentioned the possibility of letting Ally go. “We’re a family. The cat comes with us!” I was touched that he would respect the bond Ally and I had enough for her to make sacrifices so she could come with us. Believe me, it was a sacrifice. We traveled 2500 miles with her, and she clearly thought the journey was a week-long trip to the vet. It was like having a one-year-old opera star in the backseat of the car, subjecting us to panicked arias and leaving us wondering if she needed to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. At night, when we reached our pet friendly hotel, she would wake me up at three a.m. and yowl piteously, redoubling her efforts if I acknowledged her vocal performance by moving a muscle in bed. When we finally reached Lexington and unloaded our furniture, she retreated to a tiny space under the dresser, where she spent six weeks punishing us for putting her through the ordeal.

I described her vow of silence to my dad over the phone, as well as the three nervous days she spent in our new garage when we first arrived. I had the idea that she would feel better if she could see her new house with all of its familiar furniture: her favorite low coffee table, the couch where she loved to nap on a blanket, and the black ceramic cat statue that makes her hiss because she thinks it is real.

“Don’t worry too much about familiar things. All she really needs are familiar people,” said my dad, and he was right. Ally recovered, and after several weeks forgave me, at least enough to enjoy the comfort of my lap. Our second Lexington move didn’t make her miss a beat. The next day she was racing up and down the basement stairs and staring curiously out the window at a groundhog that wandered into our backyard. I could never imagine her out of the context of our old Ripon house, but she is thriving here, as Craig and I are, more every day.