Cleo

Three weeks later, when they were due to return, Cleo paced the hallway. She leapt to the window ledge, stared out at the street, then sprang back onto the floor to start pacing again. She was twitchy as a cobra on a desert highway. When I picked her up we exchanged electric shocks. Her ears flattened. She wriggled impatiently. I lowered her to the floor so she could pace some more.

“Don’t worry, old girl,” I said, talking to myself as much as the cat. “He’ll be fine.”

A waterfall of relief washed over me as their car, red with dust, turned into our street. With Cleo in my arms I ran outside to meet them. Rob uncoiled his considerable length from the backseat to accept with a dutiful grimace my embrace. Strange how the child who once stood on his toes to kiss his mother now bent and inclined his head to receive hers. Running an anxious eye over his entire six feet and more, I noticed his physical condition had, if anything, improved.

“How was it?” I asked.

“Fantastic!”

We persuaded the boys to stay on for a barbecue before they headed off. Basking in the glow of the coals, we watched the stars sparkle to life.

“Nothing like the night sky,” Rob sighed. “Whenever things get too much all I have to do is think of the stars and all the things they look down on. Here on earth we think our little lives are so important. Even though we’re an integral part of everything we’re just tiny specks in the universe.”

Cleo took the opportunity to lick some tomato sauce off his plate.

“I had an amazing experience in the desert,” he continued. “One night when we were camping in a remote spot near Katherine Gorge I dreamt about a weird white cat. It had seven hearts and it was sitting on the edge of an inland sea.”

“Was it a scary cat?” I asked.

“No. It was wise, like a teacher. And it talked to me.”

“Oh no!” I smiled. “Not again! What did it say?”

“It told me I’d been protected for many years by a cat, that the cat had guided me to the right people. It said our world would continue to be racked with sadness and pain until we learn the most important lesson. To become everything we’re capable of we must replace fear and greed with love—for ourselves, each other and the planet we live on.

“The white cat went on to say my cat guide had helped me find love on many levels. There was only one form of love left for it to teach me, and I was already further along that path than I realized. Once I’d discovered that love, the cat guardian’s role on earth would be complete.”

A shooting star scurried across the sky. I was lost for words.

“Funny thing is,” Rob continued. “It was such an outlandish dream I told the boys about it the next morning. I described the shape of the lagoon and the surrounding hills. They laughed when I told them about the talking cat, of course. But then, a few hours later we visited a place that exactly matched the dream landscape I’d described. The lagoon, the hills. They were all there. If I hadn’t told the boys about it in such detail earlier they’d never have believed me. An Aboriginal man introduced himself and told us about the area. He said it was a sacred healing ground. He pointed out seven tall mounds around the edge of the lagoon. For as long as anyone could remember, he said, the local people had called them cats.”

From her vantage point on Rob’s shoulder, Cleo surveyed every human face in the shadows of the barbecue flames and winked.

Forgiveness

To forgive is in a cat’s nature—eventually.

One of the downsides of changing countries was that we no longer had access to reliable friends who thought nothing of looking after Cleo for us when we went away on holiday.

Even though we were getting to know our new neighbors, it seemed too soon to impose cat-minding duties on them. We’d never put Cleo in a cattery before. I was worried how a freedom lover like her would adapt to living in the feline equivalent of Guantanamo Bay for a week. She’d proved herself tough and versatile, though. I assumed she’d cope.

Assumption is a dangerous thing. A couple of days after we’d collected her from the cattery, her eyes streamed with gluey fluid. She went off her food and developed a cough. For the first time in her life Cleo was terribly ill.

Our neighborhood vet was plump and red-faced with a plume of silver hair. He prodded her with fingers the size of salamis.

“How old is she?” he asked, examining our precious cat as if she was something he’d scraped off his shoe.

“Sixteen.”

He looked at me in disbelief.

“Are you sure?”

“I know exactly how old she is. She was given to us just after our older son died.”

“Well, if you’re certain she’s that old…” He sighed. “I wouldn’t hold out much hope for her. She should have died six years ago, according to the average life expectancy for a cat.”