Puss in Snow Boots

The cat, nearly up to her neck, stared at me but didn’t move as I stomped out into the lot—frozen with fear, or maybe just frozen in place. I skirted the edge of the lot, leaving lots of space between us, until I got to our car. Then, with her still watching me, I bent and half-swiped, half-dug the snow out from under our front bumper, until I’d cleared a space down to the bare pavement. Then I stuffed the old towels down there into a sort of nest, popped the top on the can of tuna fish, and waved the can around in the air so (I hoped) the cat would smell it.

“Puss!” I called. “Come have some food!”

At the sound of my voice, the cat ducked and her ears flattened against her head; still, she didn’t run away. Slowly, I went back around the lot the way I’d come, and glanced at her once more before going back inside. What I’d done wasn’t enough, I knew. But I didn’t know what else to do.

When I got back upstairs, Andrew was still watching out the window.

“She’s heading for the car,” he announced. Through the glass, I saw her, humping slowly, effortfully, toward our parking spot. After what seemed like ten minutes, she finally made it into the clearing beneath our bumper—where I only saw her for a second, caked with snow. Then she crawled out of sight.

I never found out if she bedded down in the bundled-up towels; they’d frozen into a stiff knot by the next morning. But the can of tuna, also crusted with frost, was empty. I didn’t see her for a few days, but once the sun came out and the snow started to pool and melt, I came home one evening and caught her looking at me from underneath a neighbor’s van. It was a long, blinking look: of hunger? Recognition? Or maybe, possibly, gratitude?

I bought a case of cat food the next day. And I’ve been buying them ever since.