The stupid cat just wouldn't leave me alone.
I'm sitting there on my front porch, enjoying my morning coffee before I go into work, and this orange tabby just. appears. At the fence line of my property. Just sitting there, tail slapping back and forth, green eyes staring into mine like it's got some kind of message to share with me.
"Shoo," I say, shooing with my hand. "Get on outta here."
But it won't move. Just keeps staring. And I swear to God, when I take another sip of my coffee, the cat stands up and starts walking away. Slowly. Then it turns and glances back at me, and sits down again.
My neighbor Dolores leans over the fence. "That's been happening for three days now, Vince. Same every morning."
"What's been happening?"
"The cat. It comes, it glances at your house, then it leaves. But today. today it's waiting for something."
I look at the cat again. It remains there, but now it's gotten up and taken a few feet in the direction of the street. Then it comes back and looks at me again.
"Think it's asking you to come with it?" I say, foolish for even voicing the words.
Dolores shrugs. "My grandmother used to say cats knew things. Perhaps it's attempting to impart something."
I take the last of my coffee and look at my watch. Still have twenty minutes until I have to arrive at the office. The cat's gotten farther along the sidewalk now, but it's still looking back at me.
"Alright, alright," I complain, taking up my keys. "But if this is some sort of elaborate scheme to get me robbed, I'm blaming you, Dolores."
She laughs. "I'll report to the police that you left voluntarily."
The cat starts walking the moment I leave my porch. Not running, but walking with intent. As if it has some notion where it is going. I see it walk down Maple Street, past the Hendersons' place with the uncut lawn, past the old blue house where Mrs. Chen used to live before she moved to Florida.
The cat turns left on Birch Avenue, and I'm starting to feel like a truckload of bricks. Here I am, age forty-three and an insurance claims adjuster, following a cat through my own neighborhood like some kind of. well, like some kind of crazy person.
But the cat is not going to quit. It straddles the street - slowly, I notice - and makes its way into the park. Now I'm genuinely interested because most stray cats will avoid open spaces like that. Too many people, too many dogs.
The park is not very crowded this early. Only old Mr. Kaminski with his German Shepherd and a jogger in neon shorts. The cat makes a beeline for the pond, and I'm wondering if it's just thirsty. But when it gets to the water's edge, it doesn't drink. It just sits there, looking out at the water.
I go over and sit on the bench next to it. "Okay, cat. What's going on?"
The cat spins around and looks over at me, then back at the water. And then I see something - there is something floating at the end of the pond. Something that shouldn't have been there.
I creep around to get a closer look, and my stomach drops like it has fallen out. It's a backpack. A small one, the kind a kid would use to carry schoolbooks. And it just floats there, half submerged in the water.
"Oh shit," I mutter, picking up my phone to dial 911. But before I can get a dial tone, I hear someone behind me.
"That backpack belongs to Lily."
I turn. It's a woman, likely in her thirties, tears streaming down her face. "I'm sorry, what?"
"My daughter's backpack. She. she went missing yesterday. The cops said to check everywhere, but I never expected." She sort of trails off, staring out over the water.
"Ma'am, I'm already phoning the police," I tell her, dialing. "What's your name?"
"Elena. Elena Rodriguez. My daughter's Lily, she's seven, she has curly brown hair and. and she was wearing her favorite pink dress yesterday when she." She runs out of steam.
The operator speaks in return and I explain the situation. They're sending officers and a dive team. Elena crying even harder now, and all I can do is stand and wait.
I cat's still by the water, but now it's no longer looking at the pond anymore. It's looking at trees across. Elena notices too, too.
"What's it looking at?" she asks.
I glance where the cat has glanced. There's a tangle of oak trees about fifty yards away, thick undergrowth. The kind of place a scared child might run to.
"Elena," I speak slowly, "what if. what if the backpack does not do what we hope it does?"
She gazes at me with a look of hope. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, Lily dropped it or tossed it in the water, but she's not. what if she's behind some hiding place?"
The cat stands up and starts walking towards the trees. Not looking around this time, just moving along with that same purposeful gait.
"The cat is calling us to follow it again," Elena says, rubbing her eyes.
We start walking towards the trees. The cat disappears among the bushes, and for an instant I'm worried that we've lost it. But then I hear something. A small voice, singing very quietly.
"Lily?" Elena says. "Lily, baby, is that you?"
The singing stops.
"Lily, darling, it's Mama. Please, honey, if you're there, please talk to me."
There's some movement in the bushes, and then a small face appears from behind them. Dirty, tear-stained, but definitely alive.
"Mama?"
Elena pushes her way through the underbrush and folds her daughter into a hug. They're both crying now, and I'm standing there as an intruder on private affairs. The cat emerges from the leaves and settles down at my side, purring happily.
"How did you find me?" Lily snuffles out between tears.
"The cat," Elena says over her daughter's head, looking at me. "The cat found us."
By the time the police arrive, we have the whole thing. Lily was playing along the pond yesterday and witnessed some older children being mean to a little kid. She tried to break them up, but they pushed her around and splashed her backpack into the water. She was scared and embarrassed, so she slept in the woods last night rather than going home.
"I was going to come home this morning," she tells the officer. "But then I got tired and when I woke up it was scary and I didn't know where to go."
"The cat knew," Elena says, stroking behind its ears. "Somehow the cat knew just where to look."
The officer - a young guy named Patterson - looks skeptical. "So you're telling me this cat led you directly to your missing daughter?"
"That's what I'm telling you," I say. "I followed it from my house on Maple Street, right down to the pond, and then to these trees. Like it had a clue where it was going."
Patterson shakes his head but he's taking it all down in writing. "Well, I've heard stranger things. The thing that counts is everybody's safe."
As we're getting ready to leave, Elena turns to me. "I don't know how to thank you. If you hadn't chased after the cat."
"Don't thank me," I say. "Thank the cat."
But glancing around us now, the cat's vanished. Gone, as if it never was at all.
"Where did it go?" Lily inquires.
"I have no idea, darling," Elena says. "But I believe it went where cats go when they are done helping human beings."
We head back to the parking lot. Elena's holding her daughter's hand in one and my business card in the other, telling me she wants to treat me to dinner someday as a thank you. I reassure her it's unnecessary, but she won't hear it.
As I am getting into my car, I look over at the pond one last time. And there, on the bench where I initially sat down, sits the orange tabby. Just sitting, watching us leave.
I step back over to it. "Thanks," I say to it, feeling a little dumb but genuine.
The cat glances at me once, then gets up and leaves. This time, it doesn't glance back.
I'm late for work, but I don't care. On the drive to the office, all I can think about is what Dolores said to me - that cats do know things. Maybe they do. Maybe that cat had been watching the pond for days, waiting for the right person to walk by. The kind of person who would wonder long enough to assess him, who would holler for help.
Or maybe it was an accident. Maybe the cat was just a cat, and I was just a guy who just happened to be where I was when I was supposed to be.
Either way, a little girl is safe, and that's all that matters.
But I have to say - I'm going to be a whole lot more careful around cats from now on.
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