Page 124 of Last Letters to Ara
I nod, smiling.
“Come on in!” She opens the door to a little antechamber that ensures nobody escapes, and we slip inside. Once she closes the other door behind us, we open the door to heaven.
I take up a criss-cross applesauce sitting position and watch the kittens play for a while. Most of them don’t seem particularly interested in us at first, happy to be snoozing or playing among themselves. They are all adorable and also pretty similar. I mean they are tiny, fuzzy, playful little things making the cutest noises.
Grabbing a toy, I start to interact with the few closest to me. One of them launches and misses, rolling away. That one becomes my favorite of the group, but nothing about it hits me in the chest. They’re all justcute.
As always, Theo seems to know exactly what I’m thinking. “If you don’t think you’ve found the one, we can always come back another day.”
Sigh. “I really wanted to bring one home today, I just…don’t feelit,you know.”
“That’s okay. We can ask the attendant when they are expecting more kittens.”
I say goodbye to my new little friends and Theo helps me up. We say our thanks to the volunteer outside and are just about to head back to the front office, when I see a lone, portable cage at the far side of the hallway, emitting little hisses.
“Wait.” I peer inside, and a little growl, which is arguably the most adorable and non-threatening sound I’ve ever heard, is my only greeting until a little paw darts out. I can tell it’s not one of the “please pet me” paws. It’s definitely a “fuck right off” paw.
I bend lower to see who’s making such a ruckus. Cowering in the back of the cage is a fluffy gray kitten, older by a few months than the other kittens, whose hair is standing straight up in the spots where it isn’t missing big chunks. One of his eyes is a bit squinty, and he is growling for all he’s worth.
He’s got this one tuft of long hair on the top of his head, making him look like an angry old man who’s yelling at me to get off his grass, and I can’t help but chuckle. He looks away, clearly annoyed and trying to keep a semblance of dignity.
“Er, Ara, I don’t think that one is available. He’s probably over here for a reason.” There is caution in Theo’s voice, who is justified in his concern, but my feet remain rooted to the ground in front of this angry little kitten.
“Excuse me!” I call the volunteer, who momentarily forgets to hide her grimace after I wave her over. “Why is this one by himself? Is he sick?”
“Oh, no, uh, not exactly.”
“Then why do they keep him alone where nobody will see him?”
She looks at a tag on his cage, marked with a big red “X” and cringes. “Er, um. Well, you see…”
Theo catches onto something before I do because he puts a comforting hand on my back and whispers, “We should go.”
“No, I want to know why he is over here.” I look back to the volunteer. “Nobody will adopt him if you don’t give him a chance.”
“We’ve tried.” Her eyes are sad. “He’s been with us for several months now and he has some behavior issues which have been deemed…unresolvable and dangerous.”
I snort. “Dangerous? He’s a kitten.”
“Yes, but we can’t adopt him into a home, knowing that after our best efforts he was still showing aggression even as a baby.” She sighs. “We think it started as a self-defense mechanism. He was the runt of the litter and born with six toes. The other kittens picked on him, they would beat him up, and kept him from eating.
My heart breaks into tiny little pieces for this kitten, knowing exactly what that feels like, being deemed flawed and getting picked apart until you don’t trust anyone. You start to hate everyone for the actions of a few.
“I know it’s sad,” she continues, “But he is unhappy, and if he stays here, he would live his life forever in a cage.”
“What will happen to him?”
Theo squeezes my hand.
She pauses, choosing her words carefully. “He will go to a better place.”
Not believing my ears, I look into the cage just as the kitten looks back at me. It’s something about his eyes, something like a challenge, maybe even a little hope, that has me declaring, “I want him.”
Theo’s soft swear tells me he knew exactly where this was going.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but he’s been tagged. I can’t process an adoption, no matter how much I’d love to see him get a second chance.”
I look at Theo, eyes pleading. I’m not sure what I expect him to do, he’s as helpless as the rest of us, but we can’t donothing. “Theo, he’s like me.”
