Abigail’s Resurrection

For twelve excruciating hours on Sunday, I believed I had contributed to the horrifying demise of an innocent creature with which my wife and I had only recently been entrusted. Because this is a Christmas-time story, I will say, up front, that this tale has a happy ending.

Betty and Brandy
circa 1980

My wife, Betty, is a cat person.  When I first met her in 1974, she was the guardian of Brandy, who had been born in her college apartment closet.  In order to date Betty, I had to have Brandy’s approval.  To marry Betty, I had to adopt her cat. Brandy lived a long life, following us from upstate New York, to Chicago, to Brooklyn, and to Massachusetts; never complaining about our seeming impermanence.

Alfie, circa 1993

Brandy succumbed to cancer at the age of 18 and, after a suitable period of mourning – and now living in Stamford, Connecticut – we adopted a seven-year-old shelter cat whom we named Alfred Lord Tennisanyone, for his ability to expertly bat small objects.  Alfie obligingly followed us to Virginia and back to Massachusetts. His specialty was finding odd places to hide.  When we moved into a temporary apartment in Alexandria, he promptly went walkabout and took an elevator to the lobby.  He charmed everyone he met, and his affection could be purchased by the highest bidder, preferably in the form of food. He developed pancreatitis at 16.

T.R., circa 2002

After another period of mourning, we adopted another shelter cat, this one from New Hampshire.  Though he was almost certainly a Red Sox fan, T.R. (Tabby la Rasa) was a one-of-a-kind homebody who cheerfully followed Betty around the house, laid at her feet, and slept at the foot of our bed, snoring like a sailor.  He lived to the ripe old age of 21 and even adorns the cover of one of my books.

That's T.R.!

After T.R.’s death, we elected to be a pet-free household for a period of time. Our travel schedules for both business and pleasure were hectic, and we reasoned a cat should not know his or her sitter better than Mom and Dad. After three years, though, I sensed we were both ready for another furry face in our family.  We would adopt a cat for Christmas.

That was when I discovered the rules had changed.  The Medfield Animal Shelter, which once had daily visiting hours for animals and humans to assess one another, now required an online application process including references.  Fortunately, one of our long-time members of the Community Garden is a foster parent for ‘hard-to-place’ animals, and could speak well of our prior stewardship.

Moreover, the supply-demand equation for adoptions had changed.  In Massachusetts, even feral animals are routinely spayed and neutered, then re-released into the wild.  As a result, there are few local animals available.  Instead, adoptable cats and dogs come from other regions.

Abigail Adams

Last Wednesday, our application having been vetted, we were invited to meet three cats.  All were from Florida; two had required just-completed major surgery.  We had our heart set on a domestic shorthair and there was an eight-month-old female tuxedo who peered at us with that ‘please take me home with you’ kind of look that melted your heart.  ‘Zoe’ has been born in April and surrendered to a shelter in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida.  She had lived with a foster family for a few months but, as we were told, there is no demand for shelter cats in south Florida but there is a continuing supply because pets are not routinely neutered. Thus, Zoe and her companions were put on a plane and flown to New England.

After a half-hour introduction, we said, ‘we’ll take her’.  She came home that same afternoon.

I suggested naming her Abigail Adams; both to honor an illustrious Founding Mother and because one of my favorite characters in my books, Liz Phillips, has a cat named Abigail.  As everyone who reads the series already thinks Liz is Betty’s crime-solving alter ego, I figured we might as well bow to public pressure. Betty agreed. We had our 'Cat Who Came for Christmas', albeit a few weeks early.

Abigail came to our house as a frightened and disoriented animal.  A week earlier, she had been in a Miami-area apartment with a foster family and, likely, other cats (though the notes from the foster parents stated clearly this cat would be happiest as a lone animal in an all-adult household).  Then, she was on a plane, and likely not in Business Class.  Next, she was in a shelter in a (large) cage.  Abigail was understandably skittish, quick to bite or scratch, and constantly on the lookout for hiding places.  On her first full day with us, we spent two hours ferreting her out of closets; once memorably burying herself in a box of ribbons.

By Saturday, though, she seemed to have acclimated herself to her new surroundings.  She lay under a table while we watch a movie; she even made a foray into our bedroom after we retired, before determining that was 'too much too soon' on the familiarity scale.

Sunday morning, she was not in her sleeping tent (an Amazon box with cut-outs for seeing the surrounding terrain).  Abigail was found hiding in a closet and, once discovered, took off like a shot. I had promised to fetch breakfast from a favorite bakery in Wellesley.  Betty went out to the end of the driveway to bring in the newspapers.  When I called to say I was on my way home, Betty told me she had not seen Abigail since that lone encounter at 6:40 a.m.

The sink unit

We searched what we had come to think of as her ‘usual hiding places’ without success. We began to wonder if Abigail had somehow slipped out of the house when I went to the bakery and Betty gathered the newspapers. After breakfast, we did a more thorough search.  No cat.  We walked around outside – we had a Nor’easter on Saturday and there was a crust of snow on the ground and temperatures in the low 30’s.  No cat.

We then did a room-by-room search, taking apart cushions and tipping up every piece of furniture.  We truly scoured the house.  No cat.  I theorized Abigail might be hiding in the garage (what self-respecting, Miami-born cat would venture out into the snow?). Betty checked the basement, even though we were both certain the basement door was closed. No cat.

Cat's-eye view of the sink

As the afternoon wore on and the temperature began to fall, we made two more extensive circuits of our property, looking for where a cat might shelter. At twilight and exhausted, we took a nap.  Half an hour into the nap, I was awakened by what I was convinced was mewing and, running into our living room, was convinced I saw Abigail huddled outside at the door to our screened porch.  Fifteen minutes of frantic searching yielded no confirmation. I must have been dreaming.

We looked at one another and, for the first time, began to accept the terrifying reality that Abigail was lost.  She had insufficient fur or body fat to survive a New England night, and would be easy prey for the multiple carnivores that live in the conservation land behind our home. Our only hope was someone found her on the street, took her in, and would phone the animal shelter in the morning.

Feeling horrible and guilty for our neglect, neither of us felt like having dinner.  We read the newspapers and then books.  Around 8 p.m., sitting in our living room, we heard a noise; a ‘thump’ sound.  We looked at one another, and investigated every place we had previously looked. Still no cat. Maybe it was snow coming off the roof.

A 5"-deep cave

We returned to the sofa. Ten minutes later, another thump.  This was definitely from inside the house, and likely from our small upstairs which consists of two modest bedroom/offices and a small bathroom.  We re-inspected every space.  Then, on a hunch, Betty opened a small tightly-closed and never-used drawer under a sink. There, inside, was a trapped cat.  It had somehow launched itself into the drawer from underneath the sink through a hole a few inches on a side.

Last night, Abigail was officially invited to sleep on a blanket at the foot of our bed.  She declined, of course. For all we know, she was highly annoyed it took us so long to suss out her hiding place.  Over time, perhaps, she will come to understand humans neither possess supersensitive noses nor are mind readers.  But I’m not counting on a thank-you.