18. Dalton
18
DALTON
N adia insisted she could manage the cats at the emergency clinic and there was no point for me to lose my sleep between shifts sitting in a waiting room.
I reluctantly let her go and fall asleep instantly, waking only when I hear the door open.
“How are they?” I ask.
She rests a cat crate on the floor. “Discharged. Mom is eating. Kittens were fed. They all got flea baths. I have some nutrition supplements and kitten formula to take the load off Mama Cat while she recovers.”
“So they came home?” I sit up and rub my head.
“Yes. I couldn’t afford to leave them, and they didn’t think it would matter as long as they were monitored.”
“Did you find a rescue?”
She unlatches the top of the cage and pulls it off. “Every one of them I called was full. I’m on several waiting lists.”
“I wonder if anyone ever gets off the list.”
She shrugs. “There are lots of homeless cats in the world.”
I kneel in front of the crate, half-asleep even though Nadia was gone for a solid five hours. “So now we have more secret cats?”
“Are you upset?” Her voice has a note of panic in it, as if she believes I might kick the litter out.
“No. Just wonder how Cattarina is going to handle it.”
“She loves other cats, usually. It’s her size that scares them.” Nadia bites her lip, her eyes shifting to the bed. “She’ll come out eventually and investigate.”
We sit opposite each other on the floor, the crate between us. All the cats are asleep. I reach to pet the mother, her fur soft from the flea baths. They all look like fluff balls.
“Should we name them?” I ask her. “Or is that a bad idea with rescues that might get adopted?”
“Of course we should.” She reaches in to run a thumb over the top of the first one’s head. He’s solid gray with white feet. “Greyson,” she says.
“Fitting.”
She touches the second, an orange one. “Pumpkin.”
“Easy to remember.”
“You do the next two,” she says.
I slide my finger down the short tail of a black one. It looks exactly like its mother. “Doppelg?nger.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
“But so many nicknames. Dop. BopDop. Boppy. Boppadeedop.”
She laughs. “Okay.”
The fourth one stirs, lifting its head. It’s stark white with no other color. It mews at us. “Ferris Mewler,” I say. “Ferris, for short. Or Save Ferris. Or just Mew.”
She laughs again. “You make it so complicated.”
“What about Mama Cat? The original MC? MC Catter? Can’t Touch This?”
Now Nadia is in giggles, and the sound is so pure, so happy, that the day is completely turned around from the terrible hospital shift.
Something brushes against my elbow. I jerk my arm up, then realize Cattarina has come out from under the bed. “We have visitors,” I tell her.
Nadia quiets, watching her cat approach the crate. She sniffs the edges, then pokes her face over the top. She’s big enough that she can see over it without lifting her body.
Ferris Mewler spots her and wiggles to the edge, almost as if he thinks this is another source of milk.
Cattarina strains over the side, her face nearing the uplifted head of the kitten.
The two of them touch noses, then Cattarina moves fast, grabbing the kitten by the scruff. Before we can even react, she’s dashed to the bed and leaped on top with the kitten.
“Cattarina!” Nadia cries, jumping to her feet.
By the time we catch up to the cats, Cattarina has Ferris curled into her belly and is licking his head.
“What should we do?” Nadia asks. “Take the kitten away?”
I turn back to the crate. “I’m not taking anything from your cat. She might eat me. Besides, we should think about sleeping arrangements. Does Cattarina have a bed?”
“Yes, under ours. I keep it hidden because she won’t sleep on it out here.”
I kneel by the bed and push the suitcases aside.
“It’s toward the back, near the corner,” Nadia says.
I grasp the corner of the pale blue bed and drag it out. “If that’s her sleeping spot, she’ll take the kittens down there and it will be hard to get them,” I say.
“I’m sure you’re right.” Nadia’s eyebrows knit together in concern. “We need to make it accessible if she’s going to steal them.”
“Hopefully Mama Cat won’t fight her for them.” I glance around. “We have to kitten proof this place. Those babies are going to be everywhere as soon as they get stronger.”
“We’re going to need a bigger litter box,” Nadia quips, and I laugh out loud.
“We are.”
Nadia gives the other kittens one more pat, then heads across the room to the bed. “Cattarina, you can’t steal MC’s babies.”
As if to counter Nadia’s words, Cattarina places her paw protectively over Ferris.
“Come on,” Nadia says. “Let’s get on your bed, and you can keep the kitten for a while.” She reaches in and takes the kitten. “Come on.”
“Where should this go?” I ask, sliding the large cat bed across the floor.
Nadia blows out a gush of air. “Maybe between the sofa and the wall? That feels protected without being too hard for us to reach.”
I nod and set the bed in the corner. Then I back away.
“Come along, little Ferris,” Nadia says, carrying the baby to the big bed. “Maybe you can convince Cattarina to sleep out in the room.”
The moment the kitten is left alone, Cattarina leaps across the floor. But she approaches the bed tentatively.
“Let’s see what she does,” Nadia says. “Hopefully, she’ll accept being out here.”
Cattarina places one paw into her bed, leaning down to nose the kitten, who has fallen asleep. She curls around it.
“Look at that,” Nadia whispers. “It worked.” She looks up at me with the happiest expression I’ve ever seen on her. My belly warms over. I want her to always be this happy.
“Looks like you’re a cat mom six times over,” I tell her.
She points at where my hand has mindlessly returned to the box of cats to stroke them one by one. “And you’re a cat dad.”
What is happening here? I’ve never had one pet, much less half a dozen. But as Nadia and I take kittens out one at a time to feed them, then take the mama cat aside so she can eat in peace to regain her strength, I realize—I like it.
Now it feels even more like home, the sort of home I’ve never known before now.