Twenty-four hours came and went and Little Gray Kitten showed no signs of improvement. The vet at the emergency clinic said at that point, our options were in-hospital care (which I simply cannot afford) or putting the animal down. She didn’t mince words. By the time the Dork Lord got home from the office, I was in pieces. Eyes red and swollen, snot running down my upper lip, head aching. Ending a life because I don’t have enough money to save it is, undeniably, one of the cruelest realities there is. All the while, the kitten is crying for its mother and that I have failed to make it well means I have only succeeded in making its last hours lonely and frightening. The Dork Lord held me while I cried.

“What about taking him to Dr. Jim?”

There’s a reason our vet is Dallas’ favorite vet year after year. He’s wise. I mean, he offers really practical solutions to situations that other vets will only offer to solve with costly procedures. He probably fixes a lot of stuff around the house with duct tape and Legos like my dad does. If only he were available in the evenings when stupid pet emergencies tend to take place.

So, this morning, I snatched up the kitten (who has been living in my Vera Bradley tote and fuh-reaks out if you offer to swap it out for a bed of towels and blankets) and headed to Dr. Jim. He did not see our options as so limited. He gave Little Gray Kitten a cortisone shot and and sent me away with the following shopping list:

A steam humidifier
Vicks Vaporizer liquid
Little Noses decongestant
The smelliest, nastiest cheapest kitten food out there. Something fishy.

My homework, he said, was to get Little Gray Kitten to eat. On her own (this syringe business was not working). Problem was, he said, if she can’t smell it, she can’t eat it. Wait, did you catch that? Despite everyone at the EAC calling Little Gray Kitten “he,” she’s most definitely a she.

“We don’t charge much for the visit,” Dr. Jim said. “But that sex change operation’s gonna cost you.”

And right now she is living in our bathroom, with two humidifiers and the world’s nastiest smelling seafood kitten chow, which she has, most miraculously, begun to eat all by herself.

As for me, once it’s quitting time, I’m taking a long, long nap. Maybe into next week. I have one hell of an empathy hangover.

Oh, Universe. This is not what I had in mind by “cuddling them off to the vet.”

Last night, I reached into the flower bed and pulled out the little gray kitten, who was too weak to put up much of a fight. Then I swabbed the infection out of his eyes, gently washed the crust off his nose and while his mama sat at my feet questioning my authority, bottle fed him some kitten formula. When I put him down next to her on the lawn a few minutes later, he took two steps and gave up. And that’s when we went to the vet because I couldn’t stand the idea of that tiny thing dying out there in the heat.

My husband would tell me that if he did, that’s how natural selection works. Well, not in my damn bushes, it doesn’t. This is why the Visa card was invented, I suspect, to interfere with Mother Nature when she’s PMSing.

Unlike Midge, this little one is terrified of me. Which, naturally, makes syringe-feeding difficult. Part of me is so heartbroken to hear him cry for his mama, but what can I do? I can’t give him antibiotics twice a day if I give him back to her. I can’t even be sure the antibiotics are going to work. The vet at the emergency animal clinic said we’ll know by tonight if he’s going to make it.

Last night, I slept on the floor of the office where he is quarantined, afraid that something might happen. This morning, though, he appears to have more energy and I’m packing up my laptop to go work from home so the ritual force feedings can begin in earnest.

Once he’s well, he’s going to need a home. I would sincerely appreciate any leads on a good, stable kitten home.

About two weeks ago now, I wondered aloud as to why we hadn’t seen Cass in a while (Midge’s Feral Mama —> Mama Cat —> Mama Cass —> Cass) and grumbled over how dedicated she’d been to thwarting my plan to get her baby makin’ parts shut down. I saw her that very afternoon, though, and realized why we had not seen her. Because she was off having babies.

The cutest damn babies there ever were (next to Midge herself, naturally, and Hal, though I never knew him as a wee one), I think, now live in the bushes outside of our kitchen window. Two of them – one gray and one torty, just like Midge. We were in the middle of Hal’s illness (which after vet visit number four seems to be healing, finally) and so I was already feeling like a horrible failure in the Keeping Kitties Happy and Healthy Department when I realized I’d totally tanked in my resolve to keep Mama Cass un-knocked up. It broke my heart. But it also made me more determined than ever.

Every night and every morning since, I have sat out there by those bushes, being eaten alive by biting insects, patiently talking to Mama Cass while I plied her with food and cool water and cooing songs about fuzzy kittens and life-saving veterinary care.

Three nights ago, she rewarded me by laying down within arms reach and calling her kittens out from hiding. My heart might actually have stopped beating for a moment while out they crept and zoom! right back into the bushes. Ma, there’s a lady out there! But Ma was having none of it and issued a direct order to get on with the suckling while the suckling was good. And so they suckled while I watched and heaved heavy sighs.

Last night, I petted Mama Cass. I mean, really petted. For weeks now, I’ve been sneaking in a touch or two. A tap on the nose, a brush of her side as she scooted by. But last night, I got her good. Against her better judgment, at first, but what could she do with such tempting vittles placed strategically at my side? She ate and I petted.

And then this morning, I petted again – only this time, even after the food had been gobbled up. I scratched her arched back and she shocked us both by purring and tilting up her chin for a rub. And she called her babies, who pranced around in me in wide circle, chasing Mama’s tail and tackling leaves.

I’m going to hold one of those babies soon. And they are going to love it. Once they’re weaned, I am going to cuddle them all off to the vet and find them happy homes like the one Midge has where her humans only freak out a little bit when shower curtains are climbed and eyeglasses are chewed.

And screw the humane cat trap thing. By the time we’re done with this, Mama Cass is going to let me pick her up. Because I’ve decided that is how it’s going to be. And I will sit outside every morning and every night and get West Nile Virus if I have to because if you think a feral cat is stubborn, you should meet her resident cat lady.

“It’s jigawatt, with a j.”

“It’s spelled with a g. Giga. You know, for like, a billion. A billion watts.”

“But Doc Brown says jiga. They wouldn’t have gotten it wrong in the movie – he says it too many times. And he’s a scientist.”

“It’s likely both.”

“It’s not both.”

“Say this word out loud: g-i-a-n-t.”

“Giant.”

“With a g?”

“….”

“  ?  ”

“Do you lay awake at night and practice having arguments about this shit?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

Five months ago, our apartment was burglarized while we were attending a funeral. Rough estimates of the loss came in at just over seven thousand dollars.

Yesterday at 4:20PM, ADT calls to say that the alarm had been triggered at our house. A fault has been detected in Zone 5 (utility room door) and they are aware that the pass code has been entered.

“That’s impossible,” I say, feeling my stomach drop. “My husband and I are the only ones with codes and we’re both at work.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m absolutely sure.”

“It says it was entered by remote.”

My remote, I know, is tucked in my handbag. My husband sometimes leaves his on the counter.

“God.”

“Would you like me to call the police?”

“Yes, please. Please call the police.”

By now, I’m scrambling. Closing documents, exiting programs. It all takes so long, I grab my bag and head for the door.

“My house is being broken into,” I tell a coworker without stopping.

I’m moving quickly down the hall of the office. Soon I’m jogging. And then running. I pass through the lobby in a full sprint. People are staring. I don’t care. I’m sprinting down the street. It’s four blocks to the lot where my car is parked. Waiting for the pedestrian signal is nauseating. The phone rings the moment I’m in the car.

“ADT says the police won’t come because we aren’t registered with the City of Dallas.”

“But we are. I filled out the paperwork. I paid. Remember? That guy Dave said he’d file it.”

“He didn’t do it.”

The traffic leaving downtown is bumper to bumper. My head is throbbing. My chest is tight.

“It will be too late,” I say, and it’s easy to hear how close I am to tears.

“I’ll call the police myself,” he says. But in the end, they won’t come. We’re not on the premises.

My phone stops recognizing its SIM card and I’m left, in quiet, inching through traffic, imagining what they’ve taken this time. Have the animals been smart enough to stay inside?  God, please let them stay inside. Are the laptops hidden? Sometimes we forget. I’m mentally bargaining with the burglars to leave the bedding this time.

I’m screaming inside my head by the time I make the final turn into our neighborhood. I don’t have to imagine what it’s like to have everything taken. I know. And I can’t go through it again. I think briefly about where we will stay. I already know I can’t live in a house that’s been ransacked and feel safe. Or even sleep.

I park the car and race up the steps. My husand stands in the middle of the room, unbuttoning his collar, hissing into his speaker phone. He is enraged.

There’s no break in. The alarm never sounded. Whoever installed our alarm assigned the same identification code to another home. I stand there in the 90-degree heat of the living room and wait for my heart to stop racing. I try to reclaim those last thirty minutes, undo the panic, bring it back to “everything is fine” but it just makes me more fidgety and angry.

“I’m going to go buy some more fans,” I say, and then leave, knowing that whatever fury is boiling in me will be translated verbatim to ADT by my husband who is simply better at being furious. I would just cry.