It's slow dissolving ghosts.
In the beginning, every time we'd walk past her or lean
forward to say hello - even when she jumped up on the coffee table so we could
scratch her ear - Goldie would recoil, desperate to protect herself from a past
she couldn't tell us about, but terrified if she didn't let us touch her she
wouldn't get fed.
The only thing the rescue group could tell us was she was
barely surviving in the back of the tenement on 4th Street when they
picked her up. She looked it. She was emaciated.
Now, a thousand cans of cat food later, sometimes 8 at
night, sometimes 4 in the morning, she knows, even as she cringes, she'll be
fed, she'll be scratched, she'll be loved.
No matter what.
She knows there are toys to chase and lots of warm blankets
and lots of clean laundry to rest in, even if it is just killing time before
another can.
It is when the pigeons are out, that we watch her forget the
worst. For here, she gets a chance to
dream, on a full stomach, of the hunt.
The Showdown
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