It was Dickens' daughter Mary who wrote that quote about cats.

The orange cat is still missing. Our youngest daughter, fighting off the head cold the house has been passing around last week, attempted to pick up and cuddle our remaining cat for comfort, and was rewarded not with the big loud purrs of her sweet gone tom, but the claws and hissing of a black cat that only loves on her own terms.

Solace the black cat came to us the week my Grandfather died six years ago. The tiny black kitten had been dumped in the brown lot behind our Dekalb avenue loft by some asshole. People were always dumping things in that lot, especially the wealthy man from the north side who owned the property, despite the fact that the land was ringed by very expensive Inman Park homes on three sides and our sketchy condos on the fourth. My daughters and their nanny at the time – Alena, a recent college grad who picked them up from school and kept them safe until the husband and I could get home – saw the kitten with a can stuck on its head one afternoon. Once the can was removed from the lost kitten’s head, the small black creature decided it needed to live with us. When I got home from work that evening and settled into my blue recliner, the kids opened the door to show me the kitten outside, and said kitten ran in the door in an instant and right up my legs and onto my shoulder. I had just heard about Grandpa’s passing, and had the final argument with my mother over the phone that solidified our permanent estrangement. I admitted to the kids that the kitten could stay until we found it a new home as it purred in my ear and insisted that I could be loved, that I was loved, and that it didn’t matter that my Grandfather was dead and my mom never liked me anyway.

I still really did try to give the kitten away, even sending her away to another person, who brought her back the next day, complaining that the baby cat cried all night. I sighed and gave up then, posting my bike for sale to cover the vet costs, and that’s how Solace the cat came to live with us.

She was our older child’s kitten in many ways at first, but Solace also came to think of me as her person. My daughters could play too roughly with the kitten at times, making her dance until I told them to stop, or dressing the new pet in hats she didn’t care for. It was up to me as the adult to rescue the kitten from these situations, and so Solace became used to sleeping with me at night. She still does. Solace’s favorite thing in the whole world is just to lie on me or the husband at night, or during the day, or whenever we can be induced to lie on the bed. The best thing that ever happened, from Solace the cat’s perspective, was the quarantine period, because suddenly someone was available to sit on at all times. The more often we are in bed, the happier Solace the cat.

Despite her love of our company in bed or occasionally on the sofa, Solace does not like to be picked up. She is determined to cuddle on her own terms only after the excessive cuddles of the children in her first year with us. If my daughters lie on my bed or the floor, Solace may try to groom their hair or sit on a teen’s noggin until she squawks. Walnut, the orange tom who we acquired eighteen months after Solace from the old Decatur Cat House, was the cat who adored being carried around like a baby over the shoulder, the cat who could be cuddled and who would often demand to be picked up with loud yowls. Now that he is gone on his own adventure, we are left with just one cat to love the four of us, and she only does so on her terms.

The only times Solace the cat has been out of doors are when some asshole dumped her, that one night I tried to give her away, the times we’ve moved and the times she’s been to the vet. As far as Solace is concerned, the house’s front door leads only to bad things, and she actively runs from any door that leads outside. It’s not worth the risk to her of losing her warm and comfortable home. I wish Walnut had felt that way. People keep telling me stories about cats that have been returned to them or have turned back up after months away. I hope Walnut turns into one of those stories. Both of our cats, I suppose, have been good at teaching our daughters that you can never really make something love you the way you want. It just sucks that the loss of love is baked into that lesson.