nodded.
“Fair.”
He did not push.
That was why I kept reading.
Captain needed a quiet home.
Medicine twice a day.
No young animals.
No stairs if possible.
Someone patient.
Someone home in the evenings.
Someone who understood loud old cats.
I handed the flyer back.
Mr. Harold did not take it.
“Just think about it,” he said.
“I am not replacing Blue.”
His face changed.
Softened.
“No,” he said. “No one replaces a loudmouth like that.”
I laughed.
It hurt.
But I laughed.
A week later, I met Captain.
I told myself I was only visiting.
That is the first lie every animal person tells.
He was uglier than his picture.
Big head.
Skinny hips.
One eye cloudy, the other bright with suspicion.
His fur stuck up in places.
He had a meow like a rusty cabinet.
When I entered the room, he stared at me.
I sat in a chair.
“I’m not impressed either,” I told him.
He walked over slowly.
Sniffed my shoe.
Yelled.
Not like Blue.
No one yelled like Blue.
But enough.
Just enough to make my chest crack open without breaking.
I brought him home two days later as a foster.
Temporary.
Supposedly.
Mr. Harold was in the hallway when I arrived.
So was Pearl.
So was Mrs. Penner, who claimed she had been checking the mail.
Captain looked at everyone from the carrier and made one furious sound.
Mrs. Penner pointed at him.
“Absolutely not.”
“He’s temporary,” I said.
She stared at me.
“We both know that’s a lie.”
Captain hissed.
Pearl hissed back.
Mr. Harold smiled.
“Blue would be offended.”
“Yes,” I said.
“He would want us all to remain miserable forever in his honor.”
That sounded exactly right.
At nine that night, I opened my door out of habit.
Captain did not come.
He was under the couch, yelling at the dust.
Mr. Harold opened his door.
Pearl sat beside him.
For a second, the hallway felt empty again.
Then Captain screamed from inside my apartment.
A terrible, scratchy, rude sound.
Not Blue.
Never Blue.
But life.
Mr. Harold leaned on his walker and smiled.
“You okay tonight?” he asked.
I looked at the couch.
At the hallway.
At the old man across from me.
At the place where Blue used to sit.
“No,” I said honestly.
Then I added, “But I think I will be.”
He nodded.
“That counts.”
And maybe that is the thing Blue taught us.
