Two weeks ago on an unusally stormy Saturday night, I went to the bookstore and forgot to close the garage door. When I returned home, I nearly had a heart attack when I stepped out of my car. An unexpected MEOW-MEOW! right in the face startled me and I instinctively covered my face. When I looked past my arm, I saw a drenched and skinny black cat standing on top of Amy’s Subaru Forester (about a foot taller than my Saturn Coupe) pining for attention. I quickly put down the books and called for Amy to come help. I got a towel off my bike trainer (it’s in the garage) and dried the poor guy off as he purred incessantly.

Amy took a look and said she would be back with some food and fresh water which he eschewed in favor of love an attention. After he had enough pets and was relatively dry, he took to the food like he’d never eaten before. We quickly determined he was a male (and neutered) and guessed that he’d been some family’s cat because of how friendly and needy he was. I remembered that I had seen a “LOST CAT” sign nailed to a utilitly pole a few weeks ago and ventured back out in the pouring rain to retrieve it. Amy called and sadly, this was not their cat. Theirs was a brown and black male tabby and had been gone for over five weeks. We called all of the neighbors (our cul de sac has a little directory for such things) but no luck.

For Amy and I, we didn’t even need to discuss whether or not we would care for him- kicking him out simly wasn’t an option, but we knew we couldn’t bring him in with the already tenuous dynamic between our three other cats and Sally, our dog. So we made a little bed for him which he instantly took to and made sure he had fresh water and some quality dry cat food. We would leave one of the three garage floors open just enough for him to fit under. The next day, he left while we were at the grocery. I didn’t say anything but I was silently sad. I kept checking the garage every couple of hours for him but he did not return. I went to bed hoping he had found his home or another safe place. Around 2 am, I went downstairs for a snack and checked the garage one last time. I found him all cuddled up on the bed of blankets we had made for him and I felt really relieved. I woke Amy to tell her and she was happy too.

He seems to love his new digs. He now has a warm, safe place to sleep and a constant supply of good food and yet can cruise the neighborhood anytime he wants. Bentley is surely jealous. He has fattened up sufficiently and his hair has begun to grow back.

A name? Well, we haven’t named him yet because we’re afraid we’d become too attached (too late!) but we better get working on that because he doesn’t appear to have any other plans. And that’s just fine with us.