But this time, it was our current neighbor’s cat, who had just got loose. Patricia heard the neighbors panickily looking around for a loose pet (they just got a dog) and we both sprang into action both as pet lovers and good neighbors.

Neo (if we heard right) wasn’t hard to catch. I walked out the back door and saw a flick of a tail just off the stairs, clicked my tongue and was greeted by a feline face coming around the corner and up the stairs to see me, very willing to be picked up.

But…

This is a cat Binky and I regularly saw in the window next door while Bink took his constitutional up the driveway. There was always a hint of ‘WHAT THE HELL HOW ARE YOU OUTSIDE WHAT ARE YOU DOING’ in the way Neo looked out the window[1] he (she?) was perched in.

When I saw the cat in the backyard… well, most of my brain was ‘Save the Cat, Save the World’.. no, ‘Save the Cat!’ It was an instinctual rescue. Get the cat close, pick it up, get it back to its family. And Neo came willingly, very happy to get close and get picked up, though there was a little struggle as we moved towards the gate.

But part of my brain felt a sense of loss. A wondering where that handsome white+more cat went, he regularly came out of this backyard, where is he? I told Patricia I half expected to open the back door and for the cat to sprint into the house. It’s anthropomorphizing, but I feel like he really was looking for Binky.

Was he? Probably not. I want others to feel this loss like I do—like we do. But maybe, just maybe, someone from across the way realized that someone was missing and slipped out their back door just to figure out where they went.

Edited to add: When I handed Neo back, I wanted to share how Binky and Neo would look at each other. How Binky had recently left us for his next adventure. How I was sorry that Neo might be wondering what happened. I don’t think I could have kept my composure if I had. And they were having a party of sorts, just guests visiting, and I didn’t want to harsh the mellow as it were. In the end, rescuing a lost pet was good enough… I think.

[1] Honestly, they might have two cats and, if they do, they’re both gingers which means maybe it wasn’t the same cat.

One of the most startling changes after Binky left was how quiet the house became. He was, to butcher Shakespeare, full of sound and love, signifying everything.

From his snoring to his purrs you could hear from across the room. His sighs, the sounds of his nails clattering on the floor, yowling to go outside.

But what I find I miss most of all is something particular. He’d get up with a little grunt from laying next to Patricia and jump down to the floor with a thump. He’d stretch, often with a little grunt, before walking with audible steps to the water bowl…

He drank a lot of water. His kidneys weren’t great and the prednisolone probably increased his thirst, so these sounds happened a lot.

…but when he got there, the sound that I miss most was the sound of his tag tinkling against the side of the pyrex container we used for their water (followed by the sound of lapping water like you’d expect from a lion).

After we’d go to bed and Binky snuggled up to my legs or, more likely, between my legs, occasionally he’d wake me up as he got up. I’d hear him stretch on the wooden side table before jumping down to the carpet and I’d hear him walk down the hall. Sometimes I’d hear litter getting displaced as he used the litter box but more often, it’d be the same as upstairs—the tag against the glass bowl followed by lapping water and then, after he slaked his thirst, him landing back up on the side table before making his way back down the bed to reclaim his space.

It’s funny. As I wrote this, Abbie jumped down off her tree and made her way to the water dish (albeit a different one now). No sound of her tag hitting the dish and just a barest hint of the sound of her lapping up water, and that’s just because the tv wasn’t playing.

Just now, as I sat on the couch working, he walked up to the cat tree where Abbie lay on the second tier and murred up at her. I looked over and told him he could get up there, that there was room for him, albeit in a hushed tone since I was the only one up. Wingnut stopped talking to Abbie and turned his attention to me, making a few noises before prancing towards the french doors to the dining room.

“Must just want more of his food,” I thought. So I got up “What’s wrong, Wingnut?” He started off towards the kitchen with his playful prancing, murring and chirping all the way.

As we walk into the kitchen, he looks down at a collar on the floor. For a split second, my heart thumps in my chest before I realize it’s not Binky’s rainbow. He looks up at me and back to the collar. I get a little closer (damn old eyes) and see the sleeping cat on the tag. Wingnut looks back up at me and then back down at his collar.

I get down on a knee, pick it up and place it around his neck with no complaints, no squirming. I can feel just a hint of “Thanks!” rolling off him.

We look around this house every day and see things that remind us about Binky—from the mundane to the special, from the dining room table he simply liked to walk across to the spot where he was fed where even Abbie wonders why there’s no food bowl for her to clean anymore.

One of the items in the house that I’m not sure what the endgame with is the lapdesk I used.

Or really, that Binky used as much as I did.

He’d be on it an average of once a day probably. Maybe a smidge less. He’d stretch and leave scratches in the surface. I’d pick it up with him sitting, standing, laying and move him to the ottoman just so I could go to the bathroom.

I can’t use it anymore. There are too many memories attached to it.

I can’t throw it out, and not only because it would be wasteful. I can’t give it to Goodwill because no one else will know how special it was.

For now, it’s going to sit in the downstairs window, on the shelf whereas a younger cat, Binky would lounge in the sun. It’ll be there for him to use if he ever wants to pay us a visit. Maybe if I get a Glowforge or some other laser etcher I could etch a portrait of him on it and just hang it on the wall, but for now, knowing it’s in a spot where he’d like it is going to make all the difference.

I feel silly adding this, but, when I carried it downstairs, I did so very gingerly, the same way that I’d lift it when he was on it, balancing it carefully so he wouldn’t fall. I talked to him through tears the entire way. I like to think of that silly cat laying there, waiting to perform on that shelf, just like he used to.