The cat sat there, its long black tail swishing lazily on the Persian rug. It watched as the little girl wound up the toy car and released it, sending it careening against the leg of the coffee table. The girl ran after the car, picked it up, sat down on the floor and wound it up again.
The girl squealed with glee when the toy car shot off again, running over the cat’s tail. The cat sprang up, now whipping its tail back and forth. Then with a little purr, it settled down again and seemed to grin indulgently.
After a while, the girl got bored. She kicked the toy car under the couch and ambled to where the cat lay. She scooped him up in her arms.
“Oof, you’re heavy,” she said. “Mom would have said you need a little exercise, Marshmallow.”
The cat flattened its ears a little. The Mistress had called him Duke. A grand, stately name for a grand, stately cat. But the Mistress is gone, and now he serves the Little Mistress who refuses to call him Duke. Although there was nothing marshmallowy in him—he was pure black from the tip of his pert ears to the end of his sore tail, with a temper to match—the name stuck. When her father complained, the girl patiently explained that he was the softest cat in the block, in the whole city perhaps, and it was actually an honor for him to be renamed Marshmallow, really.
Now they went upstairs, the girl becoming a little short of breath, cradling the cat a little too tightly in both arms. The cat did not wriggle, did not demand to be put down. They reached the door of her room. “Down, you heavy baby,” she said.
The girl pushed the door open, went in, and then held the door for the cat, who entered with his tail in the air.
She plopped down on the bed.
“I miss Mom, Marshmallow,” she said. And suddenly there were tears in her eyes.
The cat moved quickly. He rubbed himself against her, rumbling. He put his face under her chin, leaned against her chest, nosed her hands and legs. The girl did not cry in great gasping sobs. The tears just ran silently down her cheeks, with a hitched breath and a few sniffles. She looked older than her five years.
“I miss Mom,” she repeated, “why did she have to die?” The cat rumbled more loudly, twining himself around her.
“And I love her, and I miss her, and it hurts here.” The girl put one fist against her heart. The tears kept on falling, wetting the cat’s fur in spots.
The cat sat in front of the girl, watching her face with glittering green eyes.
“Who will take care of me now?” the girl asked plaintively. “Daddy says he loves me, but he goeas away everyday, and then there’s Miss Rose, but she leaves at night.”
Still the cat watched her.
“And then there’s you.” A pause. “Yeah, and you never leave.”
The sniffles tapered, then stopped.
“And you will take care of me, right, Marshmallow?” She gave a tentative watery smile. She held out her arms. The cat jumped right into them.
The father came about an hour later, and when he peeked in the girl’s room, she was sleeping peacefully. The cat sat at the foot of the bed, watching.
“Well, Marsh, don’t you think you could leave the princess and go chase birds or something?” The cat paraded past the man, his tail stiff with indignation, and went downstairs.
The father sat talking with Miss Rose, the part-time nursemaid.
“How is Christine these days?”
“Very quiet, and very sad.”
“Does she say anything about… ah, her mother?”
“She does not speak much. Sometimes she seems to forget herself and plays a little. Then she goes all gloomy and goes up to her room to cry.”
“I wish I could spend more time with her,” he sighed.
“You are doing the best you can,” she consoled. “You have your job, after all. And she seems to be coping very well.”
“You have no problems with her?”
“None. Well…”
“What?”
“The cat. I am only concerned about her health. He leaves fur all over her bed, her clothes. Sometimes she kisses him.” She gave a delicate little shudder.
“Oh. Him. They’re very close, that’s all. She feels he’s all she has left of her mother, and I don’t have the heart to separate them.” He smiled apologetically.
“Yes, they are very close. Maybe I just don’t like cats that much.” And he watches things too much, she didn’t add. He watches people too much, it sometimes feels creepy.
“Well, you are good to her,” said the father. “Thank you very much.”
“She will get over it. Give her a few months. Too bad she doesn’t have any grandparents, or cousins to play with.”
“Too bad,” he agreed.
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