A Warm Place
Frank isn’t there when she brings the kitten home, making it a warm little place to stay in a shoebox at the end of their bed. His dog sniffs at it suspiciously before curling up next to the box. She wouldn’t have brought it home without talking to him about it… normally. But the poor little creature had been crying forlornly, it’s little paw stuck in the grate of a storm drain, no mother in sight.
When Frank walks through the door that night, he immediately knows something is different. Gunner doesn’t run excitedly to greet him. He’s gotten used to the dog’s affection, has come to expect it even. So when the sweet natured pit bull stays quietly curled at the foot of Karen’s bed, his chest gets tight with worry.
He walks quietly over to the bed, heart beating in his throat as he pulls the covers away from Karen’s face. She’s curled up in the middle of the mattress, snoring softly like she does when she’s dead tired. Relief floods him, and he moves to investigate the little box Gunner is curled around.
He hears it before he sees it, the tiny and soft mewling noise. The kitten is trying it’s best to climb up out of the box, falling back in frustration every couple seconds. It’s so fragile in his hands, the tiny beating heart fluttering like a humming bird’s wings when he picks it up. It feels too delicate to be real. He’s never been much of a cat person, always preferring the easy affection of dogs over the seemingly standoffish behavior of felines.
He’s looking at the creature with a perplexed expression, eyes narrowed in thought, when Karen sits up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She sighs, “You’re home.” Her blurry-eyed smile freezes when she sees what he’s holding and the frown pulling down at the corners of his mouth. “It’s just temporary. I promise. I’ll start looking for someone who wants a kitten tomorrow.”
Wordlessly, Frank makes his way around the bed, gently setting the kitten in Karen’s lap before walking away. He ducks into her little kitchen, pulling things from the cabinets, running water at the sink. She doesn’t ask what he’s doing, but watches curiously as he darts around her apartment, slipping into her bathroom quickly before coming over to her.
He’s got a cup of condensed milk dissolved in warm water in one hand and an eyedropper in the other. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he carefully measures out an eyedropper-full of the concoction, picking up the kitten again. The frantically high pitched meowing finally stops. “She’s hungry.” He’s quiet for a minute, filling the dropper a couple more times before turning to look at her. “Frank Jr. once found a bag of kittens some asshole had tried to drown in a pond. They were all wet and skinny. We had to bottle feed them for weeks. There were seven of them. Lisa named them after the dwarves in Snow White.” He doesn’t talk about his family much anymore. That chapter of his life is closed, because it’s so often painful, happy memories like this often too hard to access.
Karen watches the little thing lap at the droplets of milk, it’s tiny paws clinging to the to the front of Frank’s shirt. A small smile twitches at the corners of her mouth. “You know, Frank. It doesn’t have to be temporary.”
He nods, moving to put the kitten back in her little box, watching as Gunner settles around it once again. It doesn’t take long for him to undress, to slip quietly into the warm bed with Karen. His arms are around her, nose buried in her soft blonde hair, when he murmurs, “She needs to see a vet.”
Karen sighs back, “Mmm hmm.”