Sample Story

We agreed to foster a mother cat and her four kittens for our local rescue with the absolute and unshakeable understanding that we were a temporary stop on the way to permanent homes. We already had two cats. Three was the absolute limit. We were very clear about this.

The mother cat — who we called Mama — was a three-year-old tortoiseshell. She had been found under a house with her kittens, barely four weeks old. She was thin, wary of men, and completely devoted to her babies in a way that made it difficult to look directly at her without getting something in your eye.

The kittens were placed in homes by week nine. Four families are now besotted with four kittens who have no idea how precarious their start was.

Mama stayed. We could not explain it to anyone in a way that did not make us sound completely irrational. She had simply chosen our house, and by the time the kittens left, she had chosen us.

She and our resident cats reached an armed detente by month two and an actual friendship by month four. Mama now sleeps between us every night and has permanently occupied the warm spot on top of the television decoder.

Three was the absolute limit. We have three cats and one tortoiseshell who does not count because she runs the house anyway.