My son, David, says very little to me, and when he does, he speaks in monosyllables. A couple of weeks ago, he came in through the front door and said “cat”. Just one word. I had no idea what he meant. Then he said, “In the house.”
We have this porch, an outer wooden door and an inner door made of glass panels with about four feet between. The arrangement is designed to stop our precious heat from escaping. The inner porch door was closed. David opened it and a cat ran into the house, ducked into the living room and leapt onto my chair. It looked comfortable. It looked as if it belonged there, in my chair, as if it lived in our house and had just popped out for a few minutes.
There are lots of cats in our area. They prowl our garden, terrorising our birds. I know them all by sight and this was not one of them. He was a beautiful cat, obviously well cared for, orange, with beautiful markings and an odd black mark on his nose. We considered our options for a while (with me doing all the talking) and then I put the cat outside and told it to “go home”. The following day the cat reappeared and again followed David into the house. Again, it settled itself into my chair and again I ejected it gently and told it to “go home”.
We haven’t seen it since. I think it got the message.
