One Year Later
“Please, not Petfinder again,” Anna begged, spotting the listings open on Victoria’s laptop. She set the mug of tea she’d made down onto their dining room table and took her seat next to her girlfriend. “Vic, I keep telling you, we’re too busy to adopt a kitten.”
“I’ve decided that I don’t want to adopt a kitten,” Victoria said, absently picking up her tea with one hand as she scrolled with the other. Despite her words, her eyes did not leave the screen, and Anna knew something was up.
“Do tell,” was all she said, knowing that she would not need to give Victoria a single inch of rope to hang herself with.
“I want to adopt two.” She spun the laptop around, a gleeful smile absolutely lighting up her face like sunshine.
On the screen, two fluffy kittens, one orange and one calico, were curled up into each other and staring at the camera with enormous green eyes.
“Look, darling. They’re brother and sister! ”
Anna stared over the top of her mug. “Vic. We don’t have time for one kitten, and you want two?”
“That’s the beauty of it.” Victoria’s delight was tangible, radiating off of her in waves.
“I’ve been reading up on it. Bonded pairs.
They play with each other, they’re never bored, they always have company!
They’ll keep themselves occupied while we’re at the hospital.
” Not only delighted, but clearly extremely proud of herself, she tapped the screen, then set her chin on the top edge of the laptop and batted her big blue eyes at Anna.
“Please, Anna darling, my love, my dearest. Let me have kittens.”
Anna glanced around at the large, open, sunny Brentwood condo they’d just bought and moved into three months ago.
At the huge windows surrounded by greenery that was always filled with birds and a spill of melodic song—these would now become Kitty Jumbotrons, she knew.
Their mixed bag of furniture, Victoria’s sleek Scandinavian and Anna’s ruffled and overstuffed consignment shop delights, well, they’d be coated in a frost of cat hair in no time.
Victoria would have cat trees up in every corner.
Or no, wait… Anna had seen her eyeballing a whole wall maze setup.
They had a broad blank wall in their dining room just now that Anna had earmarked to be a gallery wall.
They were still trying to select framed photos and artworks to arrange there, but she just knew that Victoria was going to start lobbying for the feline climbing wall to go there instead.
How could she have known six months ago when they decided to move in together that the love of her life was a raging, thwarted cat person?
Victoria seemed to be taking Anna’s thoughtful silence as a pathway towards assent.
“I’ve cut back my surgical hours and rearranged myself into a more normal schedule,” she said, scooting her chair around and pulling the laptop with her.
“And you’ve always had a fairly normal schedule.
Neither of us is allergic to cats. We can get a motorized litter box, automatic feeders, it’s all brilliant. ”
Anna propped her chin in her hand and smiled, simply letting Victoria make her pitch.
It was unnecessary, of course. She was absolutely going to agree to this ridiculous pair of fluffy kittens.
She would help clean that litterbox. She would lint roll all their clothing.
She would find slipcovers for their nicest furniture.
And when the time was right, she would put a very fancy collar on the most well behaved of the two cats, one with a big fluffy ribbon tied into a bow on it.
And in that bow, she will have securely tied the gorgeous antique sapphire ring she’d picked out last month, and she will ask Victoria a very important question.
Not tomorrow. Not very soon at all, really.
But it will happen.
Anna reaches over and grabs Victoria’s hand. Surprised, Victoria stops talking. “Anna?”
“Okay. Yes, my love,” Anna says, her heart full. “You don’t have to sell me on them anymore. I trust you. Let’s do it.”
Victoria’s eyes shone bright, and she lunged to grab Anna’s face and kiss her hard and fast. When she pulled back, her smile could have lit the room. “Thank you, Anna. I love you so much.”
Her joy is almost childlike, endearing, vulnerable.
She’s come so far, whispered a voice in the back of Anna’s head. A whisper laced with pride. “Of course, Vic. I love you, too.” She got to her feet and pulled Victoria up after her. “Let’s go get us some kittens.”