We took the house on Howard Avenue like most things, more out of romance than practicality. The owner had a kind soul and an eye for structural beauty. For me architecture and history outweighed the blight of the neighborhood, and the goddess fell in love with the back-to-back fireplace separating the living room and the bedroom. We looked at it as a project and an adventure.
Life in the east end of Biloxi isn't what it used to be when Howard Avenue was the principle street through a wealthy coastal town. Today it is visited by scavengers, transients, and the poor whites who need someplace to rest before they drift on. Nobody stays for long.
We had been there only a couple of weeks when we noticed the cats. A big black brute with a flat head and torn ears, a scarred, scrawny gray tabby, and three kittens roamed within and without the crawlspace under the house. Like the daily charges of the Seacoast Mission two doors down, they were feral, suspicious of the motives of the strangers who had unwittingly invaded their territory. The kittens ran in fear and the adults kept a contemptuous distance from the new tenants who naively coaxed them.
In too short a time, the kittens disappeared to tragedy or anonymity. The goddess mourned the loss of the unrequited love she felt for those little souls, and try as she would she couldn't win over the mother. It was no surprise when I came home one day to a family addition: a magnificent orange tabby stray named Tony.
A sweet companion, Tony never distinguished between the litter box we diligently provided and the open dresser drawers or closet doors we carelessly overlooked. The three of us lived much happier lives after Tony claimed the porch as his personal domain.
Mama Cat (the goddess has named every living thing within her sphere of influence) came at intervals, seduced by the morsels provided nightly. Soon enough, nurture and nature produced another brood. They crawled from beneath the porch, at first hesitant but soon bolder. There were five of them this time: two grays, two mostly black, and one magnificent orange tabby.
We chased them to no avail. Their bloodline decidedly feral, they escaped all human contact except the prepared tuna and milk left on the porch day and night. Mama cat had disappeared, and the goddess was understandably concerned for both mother and babies. But Tony herded those kids day and night. No better mother was that tom cat. Laying in the sandy yard with those pesky little kittens, enjoying the sun and the attention, he imagined himself the king of the beasts.
Not even the king can protect all his subjects. One by one, they were gone. One came back, left broken on our porch by a neighbor who brought more grief than relief. One stayed. The most timid child, the image of Mama Cat, lived under the house for months. We called her Daughter.
We never saw Tony again.
One afternoon pleading, then wailing rose from the back porch. I opened the door to Daughter staring expectantly. She moved to an old, weathered cupboard, sat down, and spoke again as if to say, "Can you help me here?" I went toward her, expecting a dash to the safety of her dark crawlspace home, but Daughter stood her ground. Inside were four, now six kittens barely two weeks old. I called for the goddess.
Scooping up those babies, I purred to Daughter,"You've been busy, girl." Inside the house. the goddess had prepared a box with towels, and the kittens had a home. Heading back to the cupboard to check for more, I opened the screen and Daughter bounded inide between my feet. She stopped in the kitchen next to the nursery box, glanced at the strange surroundings, then jumped into the box with her brood. Just five months old, still a kitten herself, the new mother had accepted human touch out of necessity. We had adopted a family.
The goddess hovered and cooed over the babies as if they were her own. Daughter didn't seem to mind, and she began to enjoy pampering herself. Weeks passed, the kittens grew healthy, and Daughter found contentment in family life.
Nothing was meant to last on Howard Avenue, and like everyone else, the goddess and I made our goodbye. One by one, the kittens were gone, this time to families of their own. My daughter fell for the tiny, timid gray. The big black one with the flat head peeked out of the knapsack of the dusty black man who cut our lawn. Two of them roam the lounge of the pensioners' home downtown. The orange tabby consoled the girl next door when her boyfriend left screaming every weekend. The last one had a name. Sam moved to the east coast with my neice, and we see him now and then.
Daughter didn't like the trip to Dr. Duke's office, but after shots and a minor surgery, she settled content in the arms of Dinah, the veterinarian assistant who always has room for another friend.
Before we closed the doors for good I crawled under the house one last time, looking for any sign of Mama Cat or Tony. Then we were gone.
Now back in Biloxi sending a ship to sea, I couldn't resist driving past the house on Howard Avenue. Weeds had overgrown the beds of flowers the goddess had carefully nurtured, and the oak barrels flanking the porch steps, once overflowing with bogainvillea, now held a clutter of children's toys.
A scarred, scrawny gray tabby lay lazily on the porch enjoying the last sunlight of a mild winter day, and under her watchful eye four kittens, one black, two gray, and one magnificent orange tabby, explored in the sandy grass.
