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The Skinnie Magazine, January 2005

When my neighbor called asking if I would feed her cats while she and her husband were out of town, I agreed to help out. I’d fed them before, and it had gone okay. “We may have a problem,” I said when she gave me the dates. We had a trip to Atlanta planned and were leaving early on Thursday of that week and  and returning on Saturday afternoon. My neighbor wanted to leave on Friday and return on Monday.

She assured me that it would be okay if she fed the cats on Friday morning and I fed them on Saturday afternoon as soon as I got home. After hanging up the phone, I stuck a post-it note on my kitchen counter that said, “Feed the cats next door next Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.”

A couple of days before they planned to leave, my neighbor called and told me not to worry if Nick, their black and white cat, wasn’t in the house when I came over on Saturday. “Sometimes, he doesn’t come home at night,” she said. “He’ll come home when he gets good and hungry.”

Their other cat, a fancy Blue Point Siamese named Keisha, stays inside all of the time. Keisha, who is never a problem, is very attached to my neighbor and usually hides when company arrives.

Nick, on the other hand, is a free spirit, who was a tiny stray when my neighbors adopted him. Nick, who loves the outdoors, roams the neighborhood, often cavorting with Sally, the Delegal Marina cat. Nick thinks our yard is an extension of his. On sunny days, he lounges beside the pool. Other days, he sits beneath our bird feeders that hang in the live oak tree at the edge of the marsh and waits for a golden opportunity.

When I work in the garden, Nick comes over to help. One day, when I was weeding the planter box out front, he hid in the large green fatsia plant. When I leaned over to cut back the yellow chrysanthemums, he jumped out of the fatsia and landed right in front of me, scaring me and amusing himself.

I am not a diehard cat lover, quite the contrary. But, Nick has adopted us as friends, like it or not. He often greets us when we pull into our driveway. The Saturday we came home from Atlanta, we found Nick sitting on our front step. He came meowing into the garage as soon as we stepped out of the car.

“Looks like Nick was out catting around last night,” I told my husband. “Guess he didn’t make it home before they left.”

After helping get out things out of the car, I grabbed the neighbor’s front door key and headed next door. Nick raced ahead of me and up the stairs. Once inside, he darted across the floor, heading for his food bowl.

I went over to the  kitchen counter where my neighbor had left the cat food. On the counter lay a note for me. “Just wanted you to know that Nick got run over. We are very sad.” My neighbor signed her name.

I read the note over several times, then stared around the end of the counter at Nick, who was wolfing down leftover dry cat food. Suffice it to say, I was confused. Nick dead? I don’t think so! He can’t be dead. I am looking right at him. It was Nick, wasn’t it? Had I let some stray black and white cat into their house. I took a  closer look.

“Nick,” I said, staring at his markings. The cat looked up at me. “You have to be Nick. You look just like Nick. You act like Nick. You made a bee-line for the food dish when I opened the door. I filled the water dish and the food dishes for the cats, then left.

“I just fed a dead cat,” I said when I got home. “I guess that saying about cats having nine lives is true after all.”

Upon hearing my dilemma, my husband agreed — it was a bizarre situation. I tried calling the neighbor’s cell phone number. No answer. It wasn’t turned on.

On Sunday morning, before church, I fed the cats again. When I started to go out the front door, Nick tried to get out. “Oh, no you don’t,” I said, sticking my black high heel near his face. “You will stay put until your masters arrive home.” Nick gave me a cat version of a dirty look.

I kept trying to solve the mystery. Why had my neighbors thought that Nick was dead? How would they react when they came home the next day and found the reincarnated Nick?

On Sunday afternoon, I had a brainstorm. I remembered that our neighbors’ son and daughter-in-law lived in Richmond Hill. Out came the phone book. I didn’t find their listing in the Richmond Hill section of the phone book. Rats. I thumbed through the book, frustrated. Finally, I left the book lying open to another page and started paying some bills. Unable to concentrate, I glanced at the open phone book, and there on the page I saw the listing I had been looking for. I called.

“I live next door to your in-laws,” I said to my neighbors’ daughter-in-law.  I told her I was very confused and said, perhaps she could help me unravel a mystery. I asked her if she had talked to her in-laws before they left town.

“Sure,” she said.

“Uh … did they mention anything about their cat?”

“Oh yes,” she said.  “They were quite upset about Nick.  He got run over.”

“That’s why I’m calling.   Well… actually, Nick’s still alive.”

“What,” she said.  “He’s not dead?”

“No, he’s very much alive and as frisky as ever. He was starved when we arrived home on Saturday.” I asked if she could please tell me why my neighbors thought Nick was dead.

She told me how the cat had been gone for a couple of nights, and when they got a call from someone at the marina saying that a black and white cat had been run over by a maintenance worker, they were sure it was the missing Nick. The injured cat had already been removed by the time they got to the marina. Later, a maintenance worker had called to apologize.

On Monday afternoon, after they arrived home, my neighbor came over with a bouquet of flowers.

“You didn’t need to bring me flowers,” I said.  “All I did was feed the cats.”

“And reincarnate one,” she said. She went through the whole story of how they were sure Nick had been run over and how sad they had been, and how glad they were to see him. “My husband was so upset he drank too much on Friday night.” We both laughed. I gave her a hug and told her I was happy to have the mystery solved.

“By the way,” she said, after I told her goodbye, “if anything ever happens to my husband, I’m calling you over.