My kitty is family

From Alfred’s journal

The gray cat from the blue house came out to the porch rail this morning and sat where she always sits, and for eleven years I have called her a problem to be watched. Today the woman who owns her carried her out in a towel, both of them going somewhere in the car, and said to her the whole way down the walk, my kitty is family, my kitty is family, like it was a thing she had to keep saying out loud to stay upright. I have spent a long time believing that was sentiment, people dressing an animal up in words that belong to people. But I have a mate and I have Switch, who is not a bird and not blood and holds this book open with both hands, and I would use the word. The cat did not come back by dark. The rail is a rail again, and I notice I keep checking it.