I’m sitting here working my main job (the non aide one) tonight with Beryl on my lap. She’s been there for about an hour now, and you can hear the purr. I’m not petting her, but she’s just purring. Somewhere in the rumbles of thought, something clicked with me.
This cat has always been an odd one, per CL and per my own observations. Back when she was Underdog, she would come up to the edge of CL’s chair, freeze and stare at the 6-8 felines occupying CL at that moment, then turn and leave. She is touchy around groups of cats. CL said that her mother, Tiger, was the same way. Rascal, now, wasn’t much for sharing CL space either, but she would push her way in and sit down with the air of a monarch, glaring at the others, and they would fold their tents and silently steal away, granting Rascal her moments of undivided attention.
Underdog didn’t have that much force of personality. After I had been coming there for a few months, when she was getting to know me, she started the oddest procedure. No other cat on the place did this. She would come running up to my car when I arrived, and I swear it was like she wanted safe conduct into the land of the teeming pride. She wanted me to walk with her through the front door and over to the feeding table. If at any time during this walk I diverted, for instance if CL needed something, and I turned aside instead of going straight from front door to feeding table, Underdog would stop, tense up, and then turn and go back out. I’d have to go back outside myself and retrieve her. She wanted an escort inside. I asked CL if she’d ever done that with the former aides, and CL said no. The hesitation and not wanting a lap that wasn’t private were old hat, but the wanting me to escort her into the house was specific to me.
In my house here on the farm, I have the oft-mentioned First and Second Feline Commandments: Thou shalt not step upon the keyboard, and thou shalt not cross the line when I’m eating. But there is a Third Feline Commandment, one which specifically applies at the computer. I instituted the Third Commandment because of the tight lap space available to cats while still allowing me free use of my hands and while still respecting the keyboard. The Third Commandment is, “Thou shalt not covet the lap upon which a previous cat is already installed.” In other words, at the desk, where I am several hours a day, there is a limit of one. It’s a private lap.
Something just clicked as I listened to Beryl purr. This is what she wanted. This is what she never has had (she was a lifelong resident of CL’s). A private lap. Not full-time but just for doses here and there; the other indoor cats are still getting their time. Beryl likes to lie behind my chair, too, when the lap is occupied. But the first few days, she would tense up as another cat would jump up on the edge of the shelf to inspect the lap for vacancy, and she would seem totally bewildered as they turned away. The other cats know the Third Feline Commandment, and they automatically respect it. You jump to the shelf, not to the lap blindly, and check the lap first. Other cat; red light, and you wait for a later time.
I’ve felt sorry for many of these cats for the wonderful person they lost, for the lifestyle they lost, for the changes they have had to make. But this one cat, I realized, hasn’t lost. This is what she was looking for all along. This is, in a way, what she was asking me for, even before CL’s death. She wanted a different environment; she wasn’t happy there. She was putting out an application, as cats do, and neither CL nor I read it at the time. And thus, she has started to purr. She has a great purr, and I had never heard it in all these months. Never before.
Beryl has finally come home.
