The Cat

A short story

Photo by Bill Adler

“You brought Cecily in to be spayed last year, right?” Kay’s eyes narrowed. Her breath was foggy,  as if we were talking outside in winter, rather than standing in our living room in August. She clenched her jaw so tightly there were  cracks along her jawline, like fissures in the earth after a quake. 

I shivered. A chill filled our house. “Of course I did. You helped me put her in the cat carrier.”

“I remember that, Stuart,” Kay said. “But I’m asking, when you brought Cecily in for her first checkup, did you tell the vet to have her spayed? You didn’t forget or, worse, tell the vet that we wanted to breed her?”

“I—”

“Because something happened, Stuart. You either forgot or went behind my back.”

“What?” I rubbed my hands together, cupped them, brought them to my lips, and blew a warm breath. 

Kay tugged at her sleeve to cover more exposed skin. 

I’ll adjust the thermostat. Better for us, and better for the cat, too.

Cecily squeezed her gray and black striped body against the far side of the couch. She curled her striped tail underneath her. She kept one eye closed, and the other emerald-green eye remained open, maintaining a half-napping, half-monitoring mode. She looked bigger than normal, as if she’d just eaten a mouse or her favorite treat, tuna mousse or—

“Cecily’s pregnant.”

I shook my head and shoved my hands in my pockets. Maybe that would help warm them. I could see my breath, too. Lost in thought, it  took me a few beats to register Kay’s words. “She can’t be. She’s—”

“Fixed? Nope. That’s not what the vet said this afternoon when I brought her in for her flea treatment. That’s not what her ultrasound shows. That’s not what her blood workup reveals. Our cat is very pregnant and in under two months, we’ll have kittens.” 

Who’s the father? Cecily can’t be pregnant because she’s an indoor cat.

“Not only did you fail to get our cat spayed, but sometime in the recent past you forgot to close the front door, and a neighbor’s cat sauntered in and screwed her.” Kay brought her hand to her mouth. “Or worse, a feral cat did the deed. No, no, no, we don’t want savage feral-gened cats in our house. They’ll shred our furniture and curtains and may even murder us in our sleep.” 

I sprinted through my memory, speeding past neurons and glia, like a man frantic to find his wallet at a bustling, crowded train station, his train departing imminently. I remembered leaving the door open for several minutes while bringing in groceries about four weeks ago, but that wouldn’t have allowed time for a neighbor’s cat to come inside, find Cecily, have sex, and then leave before I closed and locked the door. 

How long do cats take to make babies? Besides, aren’t cats noisy when they’re doing it? I would have heard them for sure.

Kay was sleeping that afternoon because she’d been up all night the night before—yes, I remember now—a last-minute architectural design change for a big client. Fast asleep.

“I didn’t let a cat in, Kay. I’m sure of that.” 

Kind of sure. 

Plus, as far as I knew, the only neighbor with a cat beside us was Odd Julian—my name for him because he was weird and I didn’t know his last name—who lived in the Sears house behind ours. A build-it-yourself mail-order home from 1908, weathered and beaten by sun and storms for over a century, it was a tatterdemalion eye-sore in our neighborhood of manicured, ranch-style homes. It wore its original coat of pale blue paint, and near-perpetual darkness filled the box-shaped house, like it generated its own shadow. In the evening, candles flickered behind gray curtains, but there was never an electric light. 

A few times a year, I spotted Julian at the door to retrieve groceries and packages, but except for that, he never crossed the transom. He was a gaunt, tall man with a gray beard big enough for a bird's nest, thick, gray eyebrows, and matching hair. He always wore a long, copper-colored bathrobe when he answered the door for the postal carrier or another delivery. 

This was either his single piece of clothing or he owned an ensemble of copper bathrobes. Either way, weird. 

Our other neighbors, too, never interacted with him. They speculated about him at barbecues and block parties—likely widowed but more likely divorced for cause. A refugee from Eastern Europe or South America, perhaps, because one of the few who’d spoken with Julian detected an accent. 

During the day, his orange cat slept on the window sill or sat staring into the street, but, like its owner, it never ventured outside.

I looked at Kay. A bluish tint coated her lips. I turned to Cecily, whose belly seemed to have expanded during the last minute, like an inflating balloon. 

Does a pregnant cat get bigger that fast?

I rubbed my eyes, thinking that I’d see a more normal Cecily after I cleared out the haze, but instead she was even larger. I heard her skin stretch, a creak, like rubber rubbing against leather. 

“What are we going to do about it?” Kay sputtered. 

My teeth clattered and goosebumps erupted all over my frigid flesh. 

I rubbed my stocking feet along the carpet to warm them. Though it was mid-August, the space between my socks and carpet sparked blue and green with static electricity. It didn’t warm me, though. “Can we pause for a moment so I can adjust the air conditioning? I think the thermostat’s stuck, and I’m freezing.”

Kay shook her head. “I don’t think so. I want to figure out what we do about this problem, and I want to know why you didn’t have her spayed.”

I shivered. A growl coming from Cecily diverted my attention. She had never growled before. Most strangely, she growled without opening her mouth. 

Are her babies making noise? Can fetal kittens do that? And even if they make noise, would these sounds be audible outside the womb? 

I blinked hard and shook my head. 

The growling continued, this time louder, definitely from inside our cat.

“Did you hear that?” 

“What I haven’t heard is an explanation or an apology,” Kay answered. “The vet’s sonogram shows four babies. Four, Stuart! We can’t have all those kittens running around destroying everything in our beautiful home.” Kay stomped her foot. 

Cecily’s belly undulated; her gray and white fur bristled. 

“We can give them away.” I wrapped my arms around my torso, but that didn't help with the cold. 

I liked kittens. I remembered when Cecily was weeks old and how she fit in the palm of my hand, a soft ball of adorable, purring fur. I was in love with her and she with me. She followed me everywhere, slept beside me, and climbed up my leg to my shoulder, where she perched as I walked around the house. 

As Cecily grew from kitten to cat, our mutual love deepend. Game time with the cat was my favorite time of the day. And now, somehow, she was pregnant. Would they be tabbies like Cecily, or would their genes combine with whoever the father was and create kaleidoscopic kittens? 

But Kay was right—we couldn’t keep four kittens, plus Cecily. 

Or can we? Why not? Kittens are fun, and sooner than later they become adult cats, a part of the family like a sibling or child. Kittens will bring us joy.

“Well?” Kay positioned her hands on her hips, forming two angry triangles. She tapped her foot, like she was sending an enraged message in Morse code. “I know I didn’t not get her spayed. I know I wasn’t the one who messed up.”

Cecily opened both eyes. Her ears waffled forward and back, and in what was the most anthropomorphic motion she has ever made, touched her belly with her front paw. 

She knows she’s pregnant. 

Cecily hiccuped, something else she’d never done before.

“Did you hear Cecily hiccup?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Look at her, babe. She’s pregnant—I don’t deny that—and while I don’t know much about cat pregnancies, this doesn’t look normal to me.” 

Kay glared at me. 

I removed her hands from her hips, grabbed and turned her ninety degrees toward Cecily, who was now standing tall on the couch, looking like an AT-AT Walker from Star Wars. 

Four distinct growls echoed from inside Cecily’s belly before she  let loose a long, mournful cry. 

“This doesn’t look normal to me,” Kay said. 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” I walked to Cecily and petted her head. She rubbed against my hand. “There’s something wrong with our cat.” 

I then kneeled so my eyes were level with Cecily’s. “Are you okay, kitty?” 

Her jaw hung loose and her tongue trembled. Her tail bushed. Cecily’s whiskers pointed forward, the tips aimed like daggers, and her fur stood on edge. Cecily howled, and a chorus of wails accompanied her from inside.

The temperature plummeted. Frost formed on the living room window, blocking the red rays of the late afternoon sun. 

My mind whirled trying to make sense of what I saw and felt. 

Cecily shrieked so loud the windows vibrated. A vase on top of our fireplace mantle wobbled, then fell to the floor, shattering into countless fragments. The standing lamp in the corner of our living room flickered for several seconds before it went dark. Loud cracking reverberated through the room as the ice coating the windows broke through the glass. A frostbitten wind whistled inside. 

Kay’s face was white, the blood having retreated from her flesh. 

I jumped when a knock came to the front door.

Cecily’s piercing caterwaul drew our eyes back toward her. In a moment that defied explanation, Cecily expelled four objects, like projectiles shot from a cannon. Not kittens, at least not like any kitten created by nature. The creatures that our Cecily gave birth to had cat heads, but instead of cats’ legs, their limbs had seven spindly, brown segments like a spider’s legs. A pair of red mandibles projecting from the animals’ mouths scissored open and close.

Cecily fled toward our bedroom. 

The front door opened and Julian walked in. 

I didn’t lock the door?

His glowing, blue eyes gave him the appearance of youth, but the crevices and gray patches on his face signaled a man who was well into his years. He gripped a bone and pearl cane in his left hand and wore his copper bathrobe. But now, being up close, I realized it wasn’t a bathrobe, but rather a robe with a priest-collar covered in silver hieroglyphs. 

The four newborn creatures jumped from the couch and skittered over to our neighbor. They leapt into his arms, snuggling tight against his body, purring loudly. 

Julian cocked his head. “Thank you for bringing me these delightful babies.” 

They climbed up further, two perched on his shoulders, one on top of his head, and the other he held. Their mouse-like tails wagged, and their mandibles snapped at the air. 

Julian leaned on his cane and spoke to my wife. “How are you feeling, Kay? Is everything okay?” His voice was deep and gravelly, his tone matter-of-fact, and his Scandinavian accent heavy.

He winked at Kay.

Kay yelped and doubled over. After a few seconds, she straightened, gasped, and glided her hand over her rounded belly that had been perfectly flat a few minutes ago.

---

If you enjoyed The Cat, I think you’ll like my short story Losing Your Fear.