I was halfway through a slice of peach pie at the Morning Star Diner when Janine Brenner slid into the opposite booth. She’d aged since the writing group ten years back. More silver in the hair, a new crease between the eyebrows. Still, she wore that same lavender jacket with the ink stain on the cuff.
“Leo,” she said, and her voice had a tremor I didn’t remember, “I need to tell someone. Someone who won’t just hand me a pamphlet on pet grief.”
I pushed the ashtray toward her. She didn’t smoke. But her fingers immediately started shredding a napkin.
It had been two months since Peaches died. Peaches was a calico with a single black patch over her left eye, like an eyepatch, and for fourteen years she’d slept on Janine’s chest. Not beside her. On her. Every night, Peaches would knead Janine’s sternum, purring so hard the sound rattled Janine’s teeth, then press her cold nose into the hollow of Janine’s throat and sigh. Janine’s mother, Evelyn, who moved into the spare room after the divorce, once joked she’d need to call a fire department to peel the cat off.
Evelyn was the one who brought the kitten home. A gray tabby from the county shelter, all ribs and ears. “To break the silence,” she’d said, setting the carrier on the kitchen linoleum. Janine took one look at the tiny thing and felt a spike of rage so sharp she had to leave the room.
The kitten didn’t care. It followed her anyway. Through the hall, into the bathroom, onto the bed. That first week, Janine would lie stiff as a plank under the covers while the kitten stalked her toes. Then one night, exhausted, she flipped over too fast and her elbow caught the kitten square in the ribs. The little body sailed off the mattress and hit the nightstand with a crack that made Janine’s stomach drop. The sound that came next wasn’t a hiss. It was a wail, high and human, and Janine was already on the floor, scooping up the warm fur and pressing it to her cheek before she could think.
The kitten stopped crying. It tilted its head, blinked, and looked straight into her face.
“It was her eyes,” Janine whispered across the diner table. “I swear to God, Leo. Peaches’ eyes. The exact shade of amber, the exact fleck of green in the left one. I know how it sounds.”
I didn’t say anything. She went on.
From that moment, the kitten—she named her Mabel—took over Peaches’ old routines. Springing onto the counter at dinner to sniff Janine’s plate, giving a short, critical meow at the green beans before settling on the chair beside her, tracking every forkful. At night, she reclaimed the spot on Janine’s sternum, and if Evelyn tried to sit on the edge of the bed, Mabel would stretch out all four legs and shove back against Evelyn’s hip until she retreated.
“My mother lost it yesterday,” Janine said. “She stood in the doorway and said, ‘You know that cat’s possessed, right? It’s like Peaches crawled back just to keep torturing me.’ Then she told me to choose: either the kitten goes back to the shelter, or she moves into assisted living in Tucson. I think she meant it.”
I watched her twist the napkin into a tight rope. “And you want me to tell you you’re not crazy.”
“I want you to tell me if it’s possible. You’re the one who talks about signs and second chances.”
I finished my coffee. “Janine, some people’s lives are measured in cats. You know that phrase?”
“No. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means each person has a number. A cat count. I can see it, if I look hard enough. Want me to tell you yours?”
Her face went pale. She pulled back against the vinyl seat. “No. Don’t. Please.”
“Good answer.” I smiled. She looked at me like I’d just offered to read her tombstone, then grabbed her bag and left without touching her tea.
Three nights later, my phone buzzed at eleven eighteen. Janine’s voice was a wreck. “She’s packing. She’s actually got a suitcase on the bed. Can you come? Maybe you can talk to her. You’re the only person who might not sound like a lunatic.”
I drove across town to the little blue house on Oak Street. Through the front window, I could see Evelyn’s silhouette dragging something across the bedroom floor. Janine met me on the porch, clutching Mabel to her chest like a shield.
The inside smelled of Pine-Sol and catnip. Evelyn stood in the hallway, a floral valise at her feet, her coat already on. She was a short woman with sharp elbows and the kind of permanent frown that comes from thirty years of fourth-grade teaching.
“Don’t try to talk me out of it,” she announced, jabbing a finger toward Mabel. “That animal has made it perfectly clear I’m third wheel in my own daughter’s house. I’m done.”
The kitten lifted its head from Janine’s arms and made direct eye contact with Evelyn. Then, slowly, one paw at a time, it dug its claws into Janine’s shoulder and turned its back.
“See?” Evelyn’s voice cracked. “Exactly like the last one.”
I stepped into the living room and sat down on the armchair. “Mrs. Brenner, can I tell you something I probably shouldn’t?”
She crossed her arms but didn’t leave.
“I have a weird trick,” I said. “I can look at a person and know how many cats they’re meant to have in their life. It’s not a party trick, it’s just a thing I’ve always been able to do. Janine has three. Peaches was number one. Mabel here is number two. And when Mabel… when she’s gone, there will be one more. That’s all. The same soul doesn’t always come back, but sometimes it does, when the love’s strong enough. That kitten isn’t trying to punish you. She’s answering a contract Janine didn’t even know she’d signed.”
Evelyn’s jaw tightened. “You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to watch something.” I nodded to Janine. She was standing frozen, tears cutting tracks through her makeup. Mabel suddenly uncurled, stretched across Janine’s chest, and touched a tiny gray paw to her chin with the exact same sigh Peaches used to make. Janine closed her eyes.
The room was quiet for a long time. Then Evelyn let out a short, wet laugh. “And me? How many do I get?”
“One,” I said. “A marmalade tom, about five years from now. He’ll show up on your porch in Tucson during a thunderstorm. Fat, with a torn ear. You’ll name him Clyde.”
Evelyn stared at me. Her lips pressed into a line. Then she walked over to Janine, unzipped her coat, and looked down at the kitten. Mabel’s fur bristled, but Evelyn just stood there, hands at her sides, and after a full minute the kitten’s pupils widened and she slowly, almost against her will, leaned out and sniffed Evelyn’s knuckle.
Evelyn’s breath caught. “I see it,” she whispered. “The speck. It’s there.”
She didn’t unpack her suitcase that night. She left it in the hall and made a pot of chamomile tea. When I finally slipped out the front door around two in the morning, the three of them were on the couch—Evelyn on the left, Janine in the middle, Mabel sprawled across both their laps, purring like a motorboat.
I lit a cigarette on the walk to the car and thought about cat counts and peach pie and the people who come into your life for reasons you don’t understand until they’re gone. Janine had two more left. Evelyn had a fat orange tom waiting down the road. And me? I can’t see my own number, never could. Maybe that’s the point. You just get the time you get, and you spend it sitting at diners, listening, watching a small gray kitten push back against a door that was always meant to open.
