A Black and White Kitten

From 1964 to the Circle of Grace

The house shuddered. I thought about my father and sister, Señor Abel, and his boys outside in the storm. If anything happened to them, it would be my fault. I started to cry and could not stop. I linked arms with Mother, and she stroked my hand. We sat like that for what seemed like a long time and listened to the raging storm. Mother covered our laps with a quilt that Señora Teresa had given her.

I wondered how the baby in his basket could continue to sleep through all the commotion. Next to him, two older children played with a kitten. The small black and white ball of fur meowed and sprang at the piece of yarn the children pulled through its paws. “Niña’s settle down,” La Señora said. “A dormir!”

A flash of lightning illuminated the room, followed by the loudest clap of thunder I’d ever heard. We all shrieked. It sounded as if Satan himself might bring the house down. I cowered as the heavens opened, and a grand torrent of rain engulfed the home. Startled, the baby woke crying, and the terrified girls huddled together, looking heavenward. The kitten sprang and skittered down the hallway to hide in the bedroom.

“It’s okay, children,” Mother said.

Señora Teresa wrapped the baby in her rebozo and placed him at her breast to suckle. She circled the children and comforted them, clucking reassurances.

Soon, they were off again to find the kitten.

I ached to look for it too, but I knew better than to leave my mother’s side.

Señora Teresa placed a log on the fire. The baby mewed in protest when she switched him to her other breast. The children returned from the bedroom. Lucia, one of the twins, held the frightened cat close to her chest, its gray eyes closed as she stroked its head, but I couldn’t hear if it was purring because of the deafening storm.

My fingers and toes finally warmed. Mother leaned close and whispered solemnly, “Don’t move a muscle from here.”

Señora Teresa put the sleeping baby down with her daughters. She pulled the covers up to their necks. “A dormir,” softly, she crooned to them in Spanish. The kitten peered out of a warm spot underneath the stove.

Eventually, the girls settled, and the room was quiet. The storm raged outside.

“Qué pasó antes, this evenin’?”  La Señora asked my mother.

“She wants to know what happened tonight,” I said.

“Oh jue speak Español.”

“Nah, maybe a word or two,” I said.

“I woke to the noise. It was the hook on the door as it bounced against the frame,” Mother said. “I realized the girls must have unlatched it.” Her eyebrow arched. She looked at me, and I knew what that meant.

“Both girls were gone, so I woke Joe. I’d checked on them only a few minutes earlier.  I knew they couldn’t have been gone long.” 

“Now, Ruth, you must tell us the whole story.”

I blinked. “We…ll, Mother I…I… couldn’t sleep.” My eyes searched her face for forgiveness.

“Go on,” she said.

“Sally,”

Mother interrupted, “Sally is Suzanna’s doll.”

La Señora Teresa nodded.

“Well, Sally wasn’t… anywhere. I looked everywhere for her. In our room, in the kitchen…Suzanna told me no, but I didn’t listen. I wanted to go out and look for Sally.”

Mother pursed her lips and nodded. Her eyebrow relaxed, and a spark of compassion in her eyes gave me the strength to continue.

“I put on my shoes, but Suzanna didn’t want to get her new shoes dirty, so she went barefoot.” I looked down at my feet, spattered and caked with drying mud. I hadn’t even noticed my shoes were gone.

“Oh, Mother, I lost my shoes,” I said, trembling.

“That’s the least of my worries,” Mother said. “What happened next?”

“We went out. The heavy rain created deep puddles. So, I told Suzanna to go back home and that I’d get Sally. But last I saw–she was following me. Then she just disappeared.”

“I couldn’t see her anymore.” I cried. “Father found me a little bit later. I thought he was the Grim Reaper.” Unable to stop them, tears streamed down my face again.

“Ruth cryin’ ain’t gonna help.” Mother said. “I was waiting in the kitchen at the Cattle Horn. I figured Buela, that big ol’ stove of ours, would hold the whole place down. But after Father brought this one back, a gust of wind blew the door right off its hinges, and I knew we had to get to higher ground. The water was already coming up the back steps when we left.”

Señora Teresa closed her eyes and sighed. “I glad you come. We help jue. Where is Father?”

“I don’t know,” Mother said. “He was heading towards the front of the diner; I suppose he went to check the tree, lookin’ for Suzanna.”

“We should pray to La Virgin Guadalupe for help. Y maybe El Patrón de los Desastres, oh y Santo Valentino tambien. Maybe they save our printing press, too.”

We bowed our heads in prayer. La Señora held her rosary beads, moving from bead to bead in her devotion.

Trembling, I curled myself up onto the sofa. After La Señora Teresa finished her prayers, she sat nervously, rocking, crocheting, and looping some yarn. She unraveled the yarn and repeated the process over and over again.

I lay on the sofa. The rhythm of her movement momentarily settled me. I watched Mother pace at the front window. The rain pelted, and the woeful cry of the wind frightened me. A shiver seized my spine. I shuddered and hiked up Señora Teresa’s quilt around my shoulders. Deep in my heart, I believed that Señor Abel and his boys would save Father and Suzanna. I prayed the group would come bursting through the door any minute. As the storm carried on, my confidence waned. Each splash of rain on the windowsill seemed to tell me that all hope was being washed away.