Mouse

I never liked cats. I grew up with dogs—golden retrievers and labradors. Later, we had a terrier.

Fourteen years ago, our house stood alone in the fields. Mice infested it. You’d be talking to a guest and see one scurry up the wall behind them, as if it had crawled from their skull. I bought a humane trap. It snapped shut every few minutes. I dumped the mice in a bucket, drove them far off, and let them go. They kept breeding.

My wife mentioned it to a neighbour at a party. A week later, unasked, the man arrived with a black Bombay cat. She was a year old. Her name was Mouse.

She tore through the infestation in days. The mice were gone. She stayed. Became family.

I like Mouse. No other cat. Cats are cold. They’d eat you if they could.

Even old, she hunts. Kills gulls. Brings rats, moles—gifts. In the barn loft, she keeps trophies. Squirrel tails. A fox kit’s brush. We don’t look there anymore.

Still. I love her.