Ava and Taco Cat

by Carol Weston

  “Amber was standoffish with me at first too,” she continued. “He’s not a natural nuzzler. But you’re right. He does like to be brushed, and he likes TV.” She smiled at me.

  I did not smile back. It was like I’d died inside. I was hoping Dad would ask Gretchen to do an about-face and march out the door. And what was in her hand? Was it a… cat carrier??

  “I’m sorry to upset you,” she concluded, “but Amber is mine. He belongs to me.” She was looking all around for him, expecting him to race over again. “I adopted him four years ago last November, shortly after my husband died. He was just a kitten. Well, last month, my niece came to cat-sit over the holidays, and I guess she left a window open—”

  “If you’re talking about the cat who was just here,” Zara interrupted, “he’s dead. It just happened. It’s terrible. It’s…tragic. We’re all, um, beside ourselves.”

  I wondered if Zara had gone nuts, but apparently she was just getting warmed up. “I’m sorry to, um, upset you, but he jumped out another window. I guess he likes windows—liked. Only this time he didn’t land on his feet, the way cats are supposed to. He landed on his…head, and he died. He’s…dead.”

  I thought for sure Dad was going to say something, but maybe he got distracted by Zara’s “improv” skills. (Dad says every actor needs improvisational skills.)

  “He’s dead,” Zara repeated. “Deceased. So it doesn’t even matter whose cat he was.”

  Dad put his hand up to shoosh Zara and turned to the lady. “Mrs. Guthrie,” he began—but then we all heard a loud strange pounding from above. Thump. Thump thump! Thump THUMP THUMP! At first I didn’t know what it was. Then I realized it was Taco hurling himself against my bedroom door! He wanted out—probably because he sensed that his “owners” were both downstairs. Gretchen looked up toward the noise, and Taco started yowling and howling. I heard my door open, and we all watched as Taco came flying downstairs.

  “Oh, my mistake,” Zara mumbled. “I guess he survived.” She took a small step back.

  “Amber!” Gretchen said. She picked him up and threw him over her shoulder like a scarf.

  Taco didn’t resist, but he shot me a glance, and I wondered what he was thinking.

  “His name isn’t Amber,” Pip piped up bravely. “It’s Taco.”

  “Taco Cat,” I heard myself say. “T-A-C-O-C-A-T. It’s a palindrome. Like Ava, A-V-A. And Pip, P-I-P.” I gestured toward Dad. “And D-A-D, or, well, B-O-B.”

  Gretchen nodded. “I’m sorry, Ava.” She was looking right at me. “Really, I am.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Maybelle whispered to Zara and me. “I couldn’t hold on to him. He was going crazy. He even scratched me a little, though I know he didn’t mean it.”

  “I want to thank all of you very much,” Gretchen said, “but now I am going to go ahead and take Amber home. My niece has been feeling terrible. She’s going to be so relieved—”

  “You can’t just take him!” Zara practically shouted.

  “Mrs. Guthrie,” Dad said very calmly, “we adopted this cat on New Year’s Eve from the Misty Oaks Rescue Center. We rescued him and he is ours.”

  “Yes, but I rescued him first,” she said. “I got Amber at the ASPCA. I have papers. He was my cat. He was my kitten!”

  I tried to picture Taco as a playful kitty with matching ears.

  “I don’t doubt that,” Dad replied matter-of-factly. “And clearly Taco is comfortable with you. But we have papers too.”

  “That’s right,” Pip said softly.

  “I’m sorry,” Dad added.

  I was grateful to Dad and Pip and even Zara and Maybelle, because mostly I was trying not to faint. Was this really happening? My insides were cramping up.

  Gretchen said, “May I sit down?” and sat in Dad’s big brown chair before Dad even said “Sure.” Her whole body seemed to crumple into it.

  Taco (Amber?) rubbed against her legs and jumped onto her lap. He was facing her, and she was stroking him, and watching them gave me a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach. I couldn’t believe everything was going so wrong so fast.

  “I have years of photos right here on my cell phone.” Gretchen started fumbling with her phone to prove it, then realized we weren’t doubting her. “And I’m very grateful to you all for taking care of him. Really. I can see he had a rough time.” She was rubbing his left ear and examining the jagged part. Taco/Amber was not even objecting.

  “Our mom works for a vet,” I said, speaking up at last. “He’s the one who stitched Taco up. Last week, Taco had another emergency—he couldn’t pee—and Dr. Gross took care of him again. And it was on a Sunday!” I wanted her to know that we got VIP treatment for his UTI, and we were an excellent…foster family?

  Gretchen gave me a sad smile, stood up with Taco/Amber, and started heading toward the front door. “I’ll just put him in the cat carrier,” she said. “And I’ll reimburse you for the veterinary expenses. I know how expensive that can be.”

  I didn’t know whether to cry or run to my room. It didn’t help that I knew we were both right: Taco was mine…but Amber was hers. I mean, I could say that Gretchen reminded me of Cruella de Vil, but she wasn’t really a monster. She was a lonely widow whose cat got lost. And she loved Amber. But I loved Taco!!!

  Gretchen started lowering Taco/Amber into her cat carrier, and again said that she was “going to take him home.”

  Dad and I looked at each other. Zara took a step forward and said, “Over our dead bodies!”

  Dad said, “Zara, that’s enough.”

  Zara shouted, “It’s not enough!” and placed herself between Gretchen and our front door. For a second, I thought Zara was going to challenge Gretchen to a duel or something.

  Dad ignored Zara, but then he said, “Mrs. Guthrie, you cannot just come into our home and take our cat. He was Ava’s birthday present—and he’s our family’s first pet.”

  “Not counting Goldy Lox,” Pip said, and I nodded.

  Dad continued and said very clearly, “So I’m afraid that is the ‘situation.’ The cat belongs to us now.” We all watched as Gretchen tried to stuff Taco/Amber into her cat carrier, but he wouldn’t go in. He kept sticking out his nose and paws. Soon Gretchen was seeming less sure of herself. Dad softened a little and said, “If you would like to visit him from time to time, you’re welcome to.”

  “Joint custody?!” Zara muttered.

  Dad gave Zara a stern look and turned back to Gretchen, “Perhaps you could take care of him when we go on vacation…”

  “We never go on vacation,” I said. It just slipped out.

  Taco/Amber started meowing and was shoving out his paws more and more frantically, and finally Gretchen unzipped the zipper, and he jumped out and raced off. But he came right back and started weaving between her legs and my legs. I was glad she didn’t try to pick him up again. I didn’t either.

  “I need some air,” Gretchen said, leaning against the wall. Maybe she was trying not to faint too. “But this matter has not been settled,” she added softly.

  “Yes, it has!” Zara said.

  “Zara, be quiet!” Dad scolded. He doesn’t usually criticize kids unless he’s tutoring them (and that doesn’t count because parents pay him to be critical).

  Gretchen kneeled down to pet Taco/Amber and said, “I’m glad you found such a good family when you needed one.” She looked at Dad, then Pip, then me, then back at her cat. “I was so very worried about you,” she whispered. “I really, really missed you.” She sort of buried her face in his fur, as if she wanted to remember how he smelled.

  Well, that got me feeling bad for her. Her eyes were all shiny, and she looked as if she might have a breakdown right in our living room, which I hoped she wouldn’t.

  After that, she didn’t say another word. She just gave Amber/Taco a giant last squeeze and left our house really
fast. The door clicked behind her.

  “Wow,” said Dad.

  “Can you believe the nerve of some people?” Zara said.

  “I know!” Pip agreed.

  “That was crazy!” Maybelle said.

  “She’s crazy!” Zara said.

  I looked at Taco and took a breath. “I don’t know,” I began. “If I went on vacation, and my niece was supposed to feed my cat, but instead she opened a window, and the cat got out, and someone adopted him and renamed him…I’d be upset too.”

  Zara shrugged. “Finders keepers, losers weepers!”

  “She did seem like she was about to weep,” Pip said.

  “She did,” Maybelle agreed.

  “Kids, Taco is our cat,” Dad said. “We didn’t make anything up.”

  “But she didn’t make anything up either,” I said. “And it wasn’t her fault that her husband died, and her niece was a bad cat-sitter, and her cat jumped out the window. Cats are naturally curious.”

  “It was her fault she named him Amber,” Zara said. “She should never have done that to a boy cat!”

  “It is a terrible name for a boy cat,” Maybelle agreed.

  “She could have named him Leo or Lightning or Simba or anything else,” Zara stated.

  “Lightning would have been good,” Pip agreed.

  “On a scale of one to ten of boy cat names,” Zara said, “Amber is a two and Taco Cat is a ten.”

  “Exactly,” Maybelle said.

  Zara walked back to her spying spot. “I swear, something is seriously wrong with that lady! She still hasn’t left! She’s just sitting in her car, leaning her head on the steering wheel.” Zara shook her head. “Go away!” she said into the darkness. “Why are you still here?”

  I walked toward the window. “There’s nothing wrong with her,” I said. “She doesn’t want to leave without her cat. I can’t blame her for that. She loves him!”

  “Ava,” Pip said, “It’s not her cat. It’s your cat.”

  “He was hers first and for much longer,” I said, looking at Amber/Taco, who was now pacing by the front door even though he’d never before asked to be let out. He even meowed once. “He was hers first, fair and square. For four years.”

  “And now he’s yours, fair and square,” Zara said. “He probably ran away on purpose!”

  “I don’t think so,” I said quietly. “And it doesn’t feel one hundred percent right for us to keep Amber.”

  “It’s not Amber. It’s Taco!” Dad said. “And Sweetie, things hardly ever feel one hundred percent right.”

  “I know but…” I picked up Amber/Taco, and slung him over my shoulder and tried to wear him like a scarf, but he wouldn’t let me. So I held him in my arms, the regular way. “Is she still out there?”

  “Yes,” Zara said. “She obviously has a screw loose!”

  Well, maybe I had a screw loose, because next thing you know, I opened the front door, holding tight to Amber/Taco. I went down our front walk, looking both ways because Mom and Dad always say, “Better a second of your life than your life in a second.” I crossed the street and approached Gretchen’s car and tapped on the window. My heart was pounding! She looked startled, but rolled the window halfway down.

  “Here,” I said, lifting up Amber and tilting him in. He scrambled into her warm car. “He’s your cat. He was yours first.” My throat was tight, and my eyes started to prickle. “I guess I was…borrowing him.”

  Gretchen looked dumbfounded and said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  My voice was all shaky. “Just say, ‘Thank you.’” We looked at each other for what felt like a really long time, and I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing or making the biggest mistake of my life. “If you go on any more trips, call us. We’ll borrow him back and take really, really good care of him.”

  Amber settled onto Gretchen’s lap, and I reached in and stroked his head. I studied him one last time, his mismatched ears and wispy whiskers and taco-colored fur. I even mumbled, “Good-bye, Taco.” But he didn’t look back at me. And to tell you the truth, my heart started breaking in two…then four…then a hundred little pieces.

  “Thank you,” Gretchen said, “Ava, thank you very much.”

  I was freezing. I hadn’t put on my coat, and my nose and toes were tingling, and my hands were turning to ice, and my eyes were beginning to burn because I was beginning to cry. I didn’t want to say, “You’re welcome,” and I didn’t want to burst into tears, and it was too late to change my mind, so I just turned and ran home.

  Inside, I shut the door behind me and went straight to Dad’s big brown chair and curled up. And there, in front of Dad and Pip and Maybelle and even Zara, I started to bawl my eyes out. Big, loud, pitiful, wracking sobs. I couldn’t help it.

  The only one who didn’t see me sobbing was Amber/Taco because he wasn’t ours anymore. I’d given him away!

  To be continued because I really have to pee.

  Ava, Admirable but Anguished

  2/2

  a little later, in my pajamas

  Mom came home, and our living room was as sad as a cemetery. We told her everything, and she said, “Oh, honey,” about twelve times and handed me tissues and even offered to be on the look-out for another cat, “not right away, not this week, but soon.”

  Zara kept saying she didn’t get it. Maybelle just sat by me because she knew I felt miserable, and when you feel miserable, it helps if your best friend is with you even if she doesn’t say a single solitary word.

  After Zara and Maybelle left, we had dinner, and Pip barely said anything. I could tell she was really upset, and I felt bad because I hadn’t thought about how much she loved Taco.

  Now I’m going to bed. I hope I don’t have nightmares.

  A. W. in pj’s

  2/3

  in the library

  Dear Diary,

  I’m skipping lunch and writing in you in the library. (I was afraid I might cry if I went to the lunchroom.)

  I can’t believe I gave Taco away! I guess I was trying to be noble or altruistic or mature or something, but really, I’m just a stupid moron. This morning Mom and Dad and Pip seemed depressed at breakfast. And of course Taco didn’t come in and cheer us up and brush our legs and ask for his breakfast.

  How could I have forgotten that even though Taco was mine, we all loved him?

  Last night when I was trying to fall asleep, I could almost hear Taco padding into my room and almost feel him jumping onto my bed. I remembered a story from the Bible (not Aesop). It goes like this:

  A bouncing baby boy was set before King Solomon, and two different women were crying and saying the baby was hers and that the other lady had stolen him. “It’s my baby!” they both said. “She’s lying!” King Solomon didn’t know who was telling the truth, so he grabbed a sword and said, “Tell you what. Let’s divide the baby in two, and you can each have half.” The first lady said, “Okay, sounds fair,” but the second lady started screaming bloody murder and said, “Noooo! Don’t kill him! She can keep him! Just let him live!” And that’s how King Solomon, who was very wise, knew the second lady was the real mother, and the first lady was a liar. He handed the baby back to his actual mom, and they lived happily ever after.

  Here’s what I think: Gretchen may have been Amber/Taco’s first “mom,” but I was his real “mom” too! Why oh why did I give him back??

  Question: If I hadn’t, would I have felt bad for Gretchen? Or guilty about keeping him?

  Answer: Maybe. But not thaaat bad or guilty. Or maybe only at first?

  Mr. Ramirez has been looking at me. I think he knows I’m upset. But he hasn’t walked over because one of his rules is, “Never interrupt a person who is writing.”

  Ava the Idiot

  2/3

  after dinner

  Dear Diary,

 
I came home after school, and even though I knew Taco wouldn’t be there, I didn’t know how it would feel.

  Here’s how it felt: Awful.

  Here’s where Taco wasn’t: He wasn’t at the front door. He wasn’t on Dad’s brown chair. He wasn’t on the armrest of the sofa. He wasn’t by the fireplace. He wasn’t hiding in Mom’s closet. He wasn’t on my bed. He wasn’t anywhere.

  Our house feels sad and silent and sorrowful. And more like a house than a home.

  Dinner was pizza, but I could barely taste it. Mom started to tell a story about what happened at the clinic today, and some dog that had been peeing on the carpet and how the owners bought him “Tinkle Tonic.” But then she stopped because she could tell none of us wanted to hear it.

  Ava, Catless

  2/4

  morning

  I didn’t sleep well because the second I woke up, I remembered Taco was gone, and then I couldn’t get back to sleep.

  Ava, Exhausted

  2/4

  after school

  I don’t know why I even opened you because I don’t have anything to say.

  You know the expression “at a loss for words”? That’s me right now.

  Ava, Wordless

  2/4

  bedtime

  I noticed that Dad put a photo of Taco by his desk, Mom changed her cell phone photo to a picture of us with Taco, and Pip has been sketching more cats than flowers.

  Dad, Mom, Pip, and I are very different, but loving Taco was one thing we all had in common.

  A

  2/5

  after school

  Dear Diary,

  We had a spelling test and Chuck and I graded each other’s papers and he said I’m amazing.