Surprise

My sable cat moves from sill to sill, with the sun. She stretches out to catch the rays, body flattened, chin on her forepaws. When I walk by she yeowls to be brushed. A brush hangs from a hook, by each sill.

Her favorite sill, where she watches birds and any four-legged intruders to our yard, is nearly four feet high--pretty much the limit of her leaping abilities.

Seeing her there, I go in and stroke her throat and chest, which makes her purr. For the first time, in the bright May sunshine, I see that she has a good-sized patch of white hair on her chest. Alarmed, I try to compute how old she is. Let's see, we got her when she was about six week's old from my granddaughter's nursery school teacher. My granddaughter was about four then--now she is fourteen.

We call this still-feral cat "the Baby." She is small and somewhat younger than our neutered male.

I stroke her hot fur. She mews and then purrs. She can't be ten.