Not even a Whisper

“She’s quiet! She doesn’t have a ‘meow.’ She lost it when she was a kitten. Some kind of respiratory illness.” Amy stood in front of the cat carrier. Her grey suede boots a perfect mirror of Whisper’s grey paws. “I asked for a kitten for my birthday remember? And Whisper here…well she was on the ‘last week’ list at the shelter. The shelter people brought her to my pet store…and I couldn’t let them just…kill her!”

Marcus put his arms around the petite brunette, holding her tightly. “It’s your apartment right? You can do what you want. Until the band gets a good gig and I’m outta this crap-hole apartment. Who takes a 4 story walk-up anyways?” His hand snaked up into Amy’s hair, and she winced just a little as he pulled her hair back and kissed her. “You realize” he said, “A cat is bound to get underfoot.” Whisper’s tail flicked hard in her carrier, rattling the metal of the door.

Over the next few weeks, Amy brought home copious amounts of cat treats, a pink rhinestone collar with an engraved tag reading “Whisp” and her phone number, a covered cat box, and a fluffy cat bed from the pet store, and bits of meat from the restaurant where she worked. Whisper decided it was good to be the pet of a pet store employee who sidelined as a waitress. Amy’s habit of drinking a cup of tea before bed became Whisper’s habit too, as the fluffy grey and white cat curled up on her lap nightly.

“She’s just so pretty” Amy crooned over the little cat, as Marcus flipped channels, “how could anyone turn away a pretty little kitty like this?” And Whisper’s mouth would open in a silent “meow” because she couldn’t imagine anyone not loving her either.

Every day but Monday, Amy would leave for work. Her two jobs gave her precious little time to be home. But Whisper learned Amy’s schedule. In part because she loved the petite brunette girl who had rescued her from the tiny cages she’d become accustomed to, and in part because she recognized that when Amy was home, Marcus wasn’t such a scary character. There were days, once Amy had left, that Marcus liked to tie a smelly band around his arm and hurt himself. A bloody smell would pervade the apartment, and Whisper realized it wasn’t the good bloody smell of a dispatched rodent, but the bad smell of a sick human person.

On bad blood days…whisper would hide. Under the sofa or behind the bookshelf, she would make herself small, small, small. Ignoring the discomfort and shaking her tail in relief when Amy got home to make special foods and teas for Marcus…who insisted he wasn’t high, just feeling a little unwell.

Some of these days ended with Marcus making Amy upset. And Amy would cry and take ice from the refrigerator where she kept Whisper’s opened cans of cat food…to soothe her wounds.
Whisper would lick her own remembered wounds, and curl up on Amy to purr. Wishing her friend would see her own worth. Sometimes Amy would cry. Her salty tears wetting Whisper’s face, she would whisper herself “you are my only friend kitty-boo, I love you.”

One Saturday night, Marcus, angry over his band’s break up, grabbed Amy’s arm. Whisper watched, silently meowing as he pushed Amy to the kitchen floor. At first, Amy cried, then she begged. But Marcus, full of bad blood, kicked her. Hard. In the head. Amy lay still. And Whisper, watching from under the couch, waited.

Marcus grabbed one of Amy’s bags from the bedroom and stuffed it full of his clothes and something out of the bag Amy always took to work with her. He opened the front door, but headed back into the apartment for something…Whisper took her chance. Grey feet padding quickly across the linoleum, she headed out the door and waited by the stairs. When Marcus left the apartment, laden with his suitcase and guitar, Whisper quickly wrapped herself around his feet.

Before Marcus hit the first floor, Whisper was curled up on Amy’s chest, licking dry salty tears from the girl’s cheeks and purring. Amy was battered, but breathing. This is how the downstairs neighbor lady found them, curled on the kitchen floor, happy to have one another. The distraught foreign neighbor woman used Amy's phone to call the police and report the dead man. "He's underfoot" she shouted "right in front of my apartment door, at the bottom of the stairs!"