Popular Culture Review 29.2
high . My husband ’ s cat . Not mine . She never took to me . But ours too because her presence is inextricably tied to that mewling kitten she once was , the needy creature who took us out of our own grieving .
And Iona . My cat . Not my husband ’ s . She won ’ t even come when he calls her , even if he makes the sound of treats rustling , even if he opens the butter tub . She waits , as if he is invisible , unheard . Yet she always comes for me . But in another way she too belongs to both of us ; she was my gift in my darkest time . It is as if she knows .
Only Brutus is really shared . Brutus , with his single canine tooth and rictus grin , his other front tooth and much of his early Doha independence taken by a car who didn ’ t stop even though they knew they had hit him . The cat who came during our sorrow , the one we nurtured and brought up through it , beyond it . The cat who comes for both of us , or neither , on certain days . The one that made both of us cry out that day . The late afternoon when the kind people who had seen the car hit him , slow down , then speed up and leave him , called the number on his tag to see how we could save him . ‘ Not Brutus ,’ we said , not Brutus .’ As if anything would be better than that .
They remain with us , all three , in a home we have finally made that fits them . Living mementos . Rescuing cats as much as rescued .
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