My breath caught. How did Tana get out of the house? Pollo bristled, seeing her outside on the patio. I hurried out to get her. She didn't run, and I picked her up, knowing something wasn't right but not admitting it. I hurried to check the screen-covered windows to see how she could have escaped.
The screens were undamaged. Back at the patio door three cats waited: Pollo, Cally, and Tana. Even then I double and triple checked. I wasn't holding Tana, but her mirror image.
He had grey and white fur, identical in texture and color, with a white collar and feet. His eyes were the same pale green. Lean and sleek, he was neither starving nor fat, very much like Tana. The differences grew more obvious. He had less white on his underbelly, and his left ear had been nicked in a fight. On each front foot, his middle toes protruded extra, and each looked dirty.
While our cats defended the house with rounds of hissing and growling, he remained cheerful and friendly. He never purred, but he accepted attention readily, like a lost creature. His meows were high-pitched like Pollo's, frequent and talkative like Cally's. He seemed to say, "It's only fair that you let me in. I belong here, like them."
Pollo, Cally, and Tana were inside cats, wanting out. He was an outside cat, wanting in. When I wouldn't oblige him, he circled the house, waiting by the front door for a while, then peering at screened windows to find a way in. Eventually he sat on our shed ramp for half an hour, sublime like the sphinx.
Promptly, at 5 o'clock, he left. It must have been time for dinner.
Not so lost after all.
by Christy Devonport