At last when my tears settled down into a monotonous sniff, sniff, I pulled away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I never cry like this. I’m . . .”
“Human?” he said, tugging me gently back so that I form-fitted with his chest. “Have I told you how amazing I think you are? The fact that you might cry like other females does not alarm me at all. In fact, it might worry me if you didn’t.”
That sounded a little like a male bias statement. I twirled it about my brain a moment, checking it over, then just mentally shrugged. If I cried when I was happy, then I supposed Frank could have his occasional “I’m a big bad male, and you’re only a little female statements . . . once in a while.
I was erasing that criticism from my mind when I heard the oddest sound. It was like someone gasping for breath or calling out for help when they couldn’t speak. I froze and listened for a repetition and heard it again.’
“What is that?” I asked,
We both turned toward the sound. Somehow a tiny gray kitten had managed to get itself locked up in the yard with Frey. It was sitting on top the old picnic table making strange little peeps and ehs.
I disentangled myself from Frank and ran over to the little baby. “Where did you come from?”
Of course, I picked it up, and at that moment I saw the distinctive markings. The white muzzle, the white paw on his hind leg. It was Willow, yet, not Willow, because in my dream, she had been much bigger.
Her tiny pink tongue reached out and licked my chin. “Mew,” she said, this time sounding more like a cat than a bird.
I petted her head and rubbed under her chin. The mercantile store owner’s marmalade cat had taught me how to do that. If I didn’t do it correctly, she used to swat me. Mr. Brown would shake his head at me. “Why do you bother with that grumpy, old cat?” he’d asked, but what he didn’t understand was that with a cat, it was a privilege to pet them, an honor when they allowed it. If you were really lucky, and you did everything just right, a cat would even purr, that gentle vibration of warm joy that entered your heart and made you smile.
So, thanks to Marmalade, as I’d called the cat, since Mr. Brown had never even named it, I knew exactly how to please this little one.