Lending a Paw(3)

Throughout my journey, the sun shone and people smiled. I smiled back, happy to be alive, happy to be me. Then white-haired Mr. Goodwin, a regular library patron, said, “Hello, Minnie. Who’s your little friend?” He pointed behind me.

I closed my eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s a cat.”

The elderly man chuckled. “Okay, I won’t. Hope you and your friend enjoy the rest of this fine day.” He and his dapper cane moved off.

I kept my eyes closed for a moment longer. Mr. Goodwin had a vivid imagination; he was always telling shaggy-dog stories that kept you riveted until the final pointless ending. Sure, that was it. Another story. Just a really, really short one.

“Mrr.”

I turned and there he was. The cat. Who looked remarkably proud of himself.

“Why did you follow me?” I asked, frowning. “And quit looking at me like that.”

“Um, Minnie?” Another library patron was standing on the sidewalk, holding one small child by the hand and an even smaller one on her hip. “Cats don’t like that tone of voice,” she said. “If you keep talking to him like that, he’s never going to answer.”

“He followed me, that’s all. He’s not mine.”

“Are you sure?” Laughing, she walked off.

I looked at the cat. He looked at me.

“You do have a home, don’t you?” I asked.

He walked straight to me and gave me my first-ever fuzzy head butt, right on the boniest part of my shin.

“Ow! That hurt!”

He butted me again. This time it was gentler, almost a caress. Then he was winding around my ankles in figure eights, around and around and around.

I sank into a crouch and patted his head. He turned his face away, making my fingers slide under his chin. “You like that, do you?” I scratched his chin with one hand and petted his long back with the other.

His purrs were loud and rattling and . . . and comforting.

“Well,” I said, “maybe you could stay with me until we find your real home.”

“Mrr.”

• • •

That day had been almost two months ago. I’d taken the cat to the town’s veterinarian until the boat was ready, and the vet confirmed that the cat was a male, that he weighed thirteen pounds, had ear mites, needed to be wormed, was roughly two years old, and hadn’t been reported as missing.

I’d run the obligatory ad in the paper and talked to the local animal shelter, but no one came to claim my little buddy. His name had been the inspiration of a bemused coworker. “Sounds like an Eddie kind of a cat,” Josh had said after I’d told the story.

“What kind is that?” Holly, another coworker, had asked.

“Just . . . Eddie.” Josh had shrugged. “You know what guys named Eddie are like.”

And just like that, my cat had a name, because I knew exactly what Josh meant. Guys named Eddie spoke their minds, didn’t waste time when they knew what they wanted, and were deeply loyal. They were the classic average good guys. At least that’s what the Eddies I’d known were like, and the name fit my new friend as if it were tattooed on his furry forehead.

I looked at him now. He was squirreled into the covers of my bed, and he still looked like an Eddie. And he still looked like he wanted me to stay home and nap with him all morning.

“Can’t do it. It’s the big day, remember?”

He half opened his eyes. “Mrr.”

It was an invitation that had, more than once, tempted me to whack the snooze button on the alarm clock. Not this time. I ignored him and headed to the shower. Half an hour later I was dried, clothed, breakfasted, and had done my best to make the bed around the sleeping Eddie.

I also kept a promise I’d made to my mother and left a note on a whiteboard I’d tacked up in the kitchen about where I was going and when I was going to return. Mom worried—a lot—and my vow to always leave a note of my whereabouts comforted her. How leaving a note for myself would help anything, I didn’t know, but she said it made her sleep easier.

So I scrawled a note and gathered up my backpack, but halfway out the door, I screeched to a halt. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch.

The panic of potential lateness seized me. I ran back inside, opened the tiny microwave that was now called the Eddie Safe, as it was one of the few places safe from the bread-loving Eddie, and pulled two pieces of bread from a loaf. In thirty seconds I’d slapped together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and shoved it into a plastic bag. I found an apple in the back of the small refrigerator, grabbed a half-empty bag of tortilla chips, filled a plastic bottle with water, and dropped it all into my backpack.

“See you tonight, Eddie!” I ran out of the house and walked across the boat’s deck, unlatched the railing door, hopped onto the marina’s dock, and started trotting up the hill to the library.