Memoir :: Chosen by the cat. My weekends begin with her arrival. She…
By: Swetha Pujari
Tags: Memoir, Cats, Catlover, Stories, Short Read

It is not unusual to find someone who loves you without expectations. However, it is rare to find yourself returning that love because it’s at this point a story begins or rather ends.

Photo by Phú Mai on Unsplash

My weekend mornings begin with her arrival. She would ring the bell, to which I would instantly climb out of my bed to welcome her in. I would make tea and sit by the door, the warm liquid waking up my senses while she walked around the house before plopping down next to me.

As I gently stroked her hair, she would stare out of the door. I could see a longing in those hazel eyes, looking for something out of reach, like a prisoner waiting for a door to unlatch. Our mornings like these were quiet and peaceful. We talked less but said more in between these conversations.

Although it seemed like only yesterday, I first met Bella a few months ago. After work one day, I returned home and found her sprawled like a royal, right before my front door. I have not been much of a feline person in my life, so when she hollered, warning me not to hop over her into my apartment door, I unwittingly dropped my pursuit mid-flight. From that point on, no amount of cajoling and sweet talk helped her move. I gave up effortlessly after a long day and retreated to the ground across from her. We stayed put for an entire hour, glowering at each other until her human came and rescued me.

That is how the showdown happened with my neighbor’s cat, when we first moved to an apartment next to theirs.

Bella is a Siamese cat, actually named Mimi by her human. Yet the name Bella suited her aptly, for she would ring the tiny bell around her neck quite liberally, at times to intimate her arrival, and at other times to scrape away an itch or two. A shorthaired, large ball of fur which looked fierce on the outside with her sharp nails and a gaze she could continue to hold.

We started on the wrong foot, and our subsequent meetings were more for establishing territories than trying to bond. Whenever I opened my front door for fresh air, she used to walk regally into my house while we positioned ourselves out of the other’s way. I used to rant about my day, and she attended to it with no apparent interest.

With every visit, she spent more time than the last, and as days passed by, we surprisingly got used to each other’s presence — both in the living room and our mundane lives. If I have to pin all of this into a single moment that changed our dynamic, it would be a one lazy afternoon when I decided to take a day off from work. The afternoon when she nestled closer but still at a safe distance from me, with her paw slightly kissing my feet.

She was sleepy but wary of my company; she kept an eye open for a lookout. With each clock tick, her eyelids drooped slowly. Unable to resist the growing invisible weight, she gave in to the imminent dreams. The moment she dozed off, it occurred that this was the first time a cat chose me. I admit her trusting me meant more to me than her.

I have envisioned my life with a pet someday but never pictured it with a cat. Now it is ominous to think I could live without one around.